At first, the North German NDR reported this rather casually - a radio station, of course, respected and respectable, especially by German standards (Norddeutscher Rundfunk has been broadcasting since 1924, since then, as you understand, a lot has changed in Germany - there is experience), but still purely regional.
However, the information was initially in the category of quite local news: as it became known to the NDR, the Department of Waterways and Shipping in Stralsund asked the captains of sea vessels to "take special care" after December 5, 2020 south of the Adlergrund sea area in the Baltic.
In connection with the start of large-scale construction work there.
It was very easy for the staff of the information service of the radio station to add two and two, they are familiar with local realities: it is in this area that two branches of future pipelines end, which lead from the point of landfall of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline under construction (Lubmine station) into windy, stormy and harsh , for the present pre-winter times the cold Baltic Sea.
The operator company Nord Stream 2 AG confirmed this information to the radio station employees, specifying that in the area of interest to NRD, the ends of the pipelines will be lifted from the seabed and another 2.6 km of the future gas route will be laid.
As the radio station specified, usually such a section is covered in about one, maximum two days.
This information was confirmed by Nord Stream 2 AG and for the Russian media.
Literally: “Yes, we can confirm it.
We plan to resume pipe-laying work using an anchored vessel in the German Exclusive Economic Zone this year.
We will name the specific vessel that will be used later, ”the operating company explained to reporters, answering the question whether Nord Stream 2 AG confirms the resumption of work on the construction of the unfinished section of the gas pipeline.
By the way, the completion of the construction, according to the German media, will be the pipelayer Akademik Chersky, who went to the port of Kaliningrad now (apparently, for a small additional re-equipment before work): in German Mukran, these works are "prohibited by American sanctions" - there is no need to tease the geese , it is better to pay calmly at the Russian port.
For the anchor barge Fortuna, it will now be too windy in the Baltic - a rather tough season.
And now, immediately, of course, a very topical question arises: what does this change in the general alignment of forces in the continuing tough confrontation around Russian natural gas in Europe in general and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in particular?
Alas, in general, nothing.
As a matter of fact, if everything that happens looks even to the smallest degree "sensational", it is exclusively in the media space.
Where, within the framework of protecting the brains of European consumers from the molecules of the totalitarian "Russian gas", Nord Stream 2 has not been repeatedly "defeated" by anyone - from the befuddled Trump to the befuddling Biden, from the European greens and under-poisoned Navalny to some regular bridle Zelensky seated another clear-noble Pole (the Turks, glory to Allah, merciful and merciful, this is not necessary - they have everything exactly with the "gas flows", even have their own).
In general, here, in the brilliant "world of media", everyone who needs to have checked in.
And to whom it is categorically contraindicated - also, by the way, have contrived.
But what, in principle, is the difference: for the harsh Baltic reality with its "gas corridors" all this is nothing more than white, sorry, noise.
In reality, what, in fact, concerns the "hardware" itself, that is, the gas pipeline, then everything went on and on.
More or less according to the schedule outlined by Russian President Putin even, if I do not have sclerosis, at the end of last year.
Then, I remember, some especially zealous - now "patriots-social activists" - also shouted loudly: "Why endure so long ?!"
But now it is already clear: people in the Russian state power simply quite soberly assessed the scale of the practical tasks facing them.
As, for example, with the replacement of pipe-laying vessels (yes, there really was a rather sensitive blow).
Moreover, practical tasks of both a purely technological and legal nature - this should also not be forgotten.
Now everything is plus or minus according to this schedule and goes.
This is on the one hand.
On the other hand, no one has the slightest doubt that even the completion of construction carried out “in hardware” will in no way affect the ongoing “heat of struggle”: even when (and if) Nord Stream 2 reaches its design capacity, with all the forces, all the existing bureaucratic "squiggles", they will still continuously "fight" and will still try to "prohibit" in one way or another.
Up to environmental claims for unscheduled spawning of cod or interference with the intimate and chaste process of breeding pinnipeds.
Everything is simple here, and we have already written about it more than once: Nord Stream 2 is just one of the episodes of the global battle, one of the episodes of the great economic war unfolding in the European theater of operations.
We, the Russian side, which, in principle, only ricochets, as European suppliers: even in the same Nord Stream 2, old continental Europe is much more interested in Russia, in order not to understand this, one must be somehow completely Ukraine.
The fact is that the general situation with energy resources in Europe has changed dramatically over the past decades, including through our efforts.
And although Russia is still interested in its traditional European energy markets, the former "monopoly of buyers" (on which, by the way, the Third Energy Package held and made sense) for its products no longer exists: European routes are already in fact sufficiently diversified.
And then there is Power of Siberia (and Power of Siberia - 2 is actively being designed. And the most important thing is that now, just in fact, we ourselves have what we were most threatened with: both capacities and technologies for LNG production And not only, by the way, at the most famous in this sense, Novatek: both Rosneft and Gazprom itself, although not so this "love affair with LNG" advertise, but also quite actively practice - look, for example, to the same Far East.
And for some reason, there is not the slightest doubt that if the stars stood up like this and the American pressure on Nord Stream 2 were still crowned with success, Gazprom would certainly not cry, but would have gladly received the compensation prescribed in the contract and I would simply lay in additional liquefaction capacities in the Leningrad Region: there is already something under construction there, so why waste any good.
The same Europeans will buy this LNG, only at a higher price - well, who is to blame for that ...
But for Europe, especially for the industry of the northwestern (Baltic) German-speaking cluster, the planned completion and functioning of Nord Stream 2, its very existence is a banal question of survival.
Therefore, here, in general, the operator company was so calm all this time: it’s just “an equation with well-known unknowns” - an old quarrel between the European “island” (with the capital in London or Washington) and the European “ continent ", which the" islanders "have been continuously plundering since the Middle Ages.
Just a continuation of the "historical dispute" which has been going on for centuries: who is their thief and who stole the club from whom.
Therefore, for us, for the Russian side, the current algorithm of actions is extremely simple: we will complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline (in the sense of the pipe itself) for the Europeans - there was no doubt about that.
It's just pretty silly to assume that this is "the end of the war"
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.