If you look impartially and from the outside, then, of course, the gestures of the current American authorities around the construction of the Russian-European Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline look somewhat chaotic and at least multidirectional. Moreover, they are so multidirectional that the press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Sergeevich Peskov did not even fail to note it. In his opinion, on the one hand, Washington's statement on the decision to suspend sanctions against the operator of the Nord Stream 2 project, Nord Stream 2 AG, can be regarded as, of course, a positive signal that the Kremlin hears and perceives. But this is still, excuse me, only one "side".
At the same time, separately - already from ourselves - we note that "they hear and perceive" this signal is not only in the Kremlin: the German Chancellor Angela Merkel also highly appreciated this step of the Joe Biden administration. “President Biden, of course, has come a little closer to us regarding the conflict over Nord Stream 2,” said Frau Bundeskanzlerin, speaking online at a forum organized by the WDR broadcaster. And even the European Commission, which has never been particularly sympathetic to either Nord Stream 2, or even more so to Russia, said that such a decision is fully consistent with the promise of the new head of the American White House "to restore US relations with Europe" (c).
Well, the zapoloshny reaction, for example, of the Ukrainian authorities to this decision of Washington, should at least give connoisseurs the most real, distilled, one might say, pleasure.
Even from the point of view of pure aesthetics: the spectacle was, one might say, quite heartbreaking.
And the comedian Zelensky, threatening almost anathema to American President Biden, clearly took another professional height.
At least it was really, really funny.
But, on the other hand, the same Peskov, in fact, simultaneously with the noted "positivity of the signal", also stated the need to understand other actions of the US administration. Which, in fact, simultaneously with the lifting of sanctions from the operator company, announced additional restrictions in relation to the Russian participants in the project. “We need to figure it out. The colleagues have everything as usual. They talk about one thing, do something else, ”Dmitry Sergeevich could only shrug his shoulders when asked by a journalist whether Moscow would take this step of Washington into account when working on Vladimir Putin's meeting with Joe Biden. And if we take into account the essentially medical fact that by definition there are no “trifles” when working out such events as the summit of the heads of global nuclear superpowers, journalists can be reassured: do not worry, Moscow will certainly take everything into account.Even if the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is simply not on the agenda of the summit: here, in general, it is not very clear what we should discuss with America on this matter. There is a relationship between Russia and Europe, primarily with Germany, regarding the energy project that Germany and the EU need so much. There is a relationship between the EU and Germany with the United States for exactly the same reason - the United States does not need this project at all.
Everything seems to be logical for now, even in the sense of confrontation.
But only there are no relations between Russia and the United States regarding the construction of Nord Stream 2 in nature, so we have nothing to negotiate about and nothing to regulate.
There exist, from our point of view, exclusively illegal and illegitimate "sanctions", and we do not see any point in discussing these illegal actions, as President Putin and Minister Lavrov have spoken about more than once.
Sorry, not our question.
Now let's try to explain why.
If we speak in quite, unfortunately, understandable to most capable citizens of our country "business slang from the 1990s", then what is happening around the Nord Stream 2 project can be described quite simply and colorfully recently: the Americans first sharply "ran over" their European partners "Gazprom" - first of all on the representatives of German business - and then just as sharply "merged and left the topic."
At the same time, the attitude of the Americans towards the actual Russian participants in the construction was no less demonstratively changed: on the contrary, sanctions, although not very burdensome, but nevertheless quite symbolic for the relationship, were introduced.
And it is quite possible that this is all well planned and is developing quite successfully, at least for the joint Russian-European project itself as a separate business unit.
But as a state of the Russian Federation, we are here, excuse me, what have we to do with it?
The Europeans were "run over", the Europeans, as best they could, fought back somewhere, paid off somewhere.
Well done, of course.
But this question was initially in their European zone of responsibility, no one here even asked us specifically and did not invite us there, to this very “zone of responsibility”.
And why, excuse me, do we then have to pay someone else for this European victory at least in some way - even political, even economic?
No, it’s so clear that our common American partners with the Europeans are doing their favorite thing, with them, already in their “business slang” called “sell a goose twice”.
But you and I know that this is simply a German goose in fact.
And it hardly makes sense for us, somehow and in any available form, to “pay” the Americans.
What, in fact, is it about.
We have written about this more than once: yes, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project is very important and interesting for Russia. More precisely, for the Russian gas giant Gazprom, this is by no means the same thing with Russia, but nevertheless, you cannot take away one of the backbone enterprises for our economy. Good, in general, business, an interesting project in traditional markets, good money in the treasury. But - far from a matter of life and death. What can not be said about the same European energy, which can dislike the “undemocratic molecules” of Russian gas for political and / or human rights (and even gender) reasons. But she simply has nothing to replace them with corny.
Own production in Europe is falling catastrophically, even faster than planned.
The Ukrainian GTS, it seems, has already, technically, crossed the line to which it was possible, without catastrophically risking, to conclude long-term contracts ("short peaks" - back and forth, but risk for longer time intervals - thank you here) ...
And accordingly, it makes no sense to consider this GTS as a strategic transit corridor simply for purely technical reasons: let the pipeline be modernized first.
That not only billions of dollars, but a decent number of years.
Well, the American LNG, which they promised to literally "fill" Europe, is somehow not there, and it seems that it is not foreseen in the nearest historical perspective, and for quite objective reasons.
This is not a simple, to put it mildly, situation in American production itself, and Asian markets, where even existing LNG can be sold at a much higher price and where it is much easier to transport it. However, there is even nothing to argue about: this cold winter gas on spots in Europe broke all price records, but at the same time, American LNG still somehow did not reach local markets: it was stupidly bought by Asians, where it was even more expensive. As a result, almost empty European UGS facilities were sold, and it would be foolish to expect something else in the current situation at these spots "with delivery on the next day".
And this is perhaps the main reason for the total calm that Russian gas workers demonstrated in the current situation: if Europe simply wants to live as an industrial center, at least, it will deal with these American sanctions on its own.
And if not, then it is impossible to rescue anyone by force, and the “pipe” is quite replaceable in Ust-Luga with additional LNG production capacities.
You might think that this is such a great secret.
Fortunately, we now have these technologies, just look at the same "Arctic LNG", which proved everything quite convincingly.
Therefore, our area of responsibility in this particular case is simply to complete the construction of Nord Stream 2, which we are now quite successful in, not even particularly, by the way, and are doing it in a hurry.
Yesterday, for example, a message came that Fortuna, after completing work in Danish waters,
resumed work on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the exclusive economic zone of Germany.
So, as far as the Russian "zone of responsibility" is concerned, everything is unchanged here.
Which is already, in principle, good.
Well, the lifting of restrictions (more precisely, they are still "suspended") from Nord Stream 2 AG - here Peskov and Merkel are right - can only be welcomed.
But this should not be considered some kind of radical change in American policy towards our country and / or some kind of breakthrough in anticipation of a Biden-Putin summit - this is just another question.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.