The controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany has been "fully completed", announced the Russian giant Gazprom, a strategic project long delayed by threats of US sanctions and geopolitical tensions.
The submarine pipeline in the Baltic Sea is to double Russian gas deliveries to Germany, the main promoter of the project.
But for its detractors, in Europe as in the United States, it will durably increase European energy dependence on Russia, the West's great strategic rival.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin have repeatedly insisted that Nord Stream was a purely commercial project, without a political dimension.
This tube with a capacity of 55 billion m3 of gas per year travels 1,230 kilometers under the Baltic Sea on the same route as its twin Nord Stream 1, operational since 2012. For years, the project opposed Washington and Berlin but also the Europeans among themselves, as well as Russia and Ukraine, a Western ally against Moscow, which sees its position weakened by the commissioning of the tube.
Ukraine potentially deprived of leverage
Finally, a turnaround in Washington, after the coming to power of Joe Biden, allowed the development of a German-American compromise to try to close this dispute.
For Ukraine, this tube could eventually deprive Kiev of at least $ 1.5 billion per year that it currently receives for the transit of Russian gas through its territory to Europe but also of a lever in the face of his Russian opponent.
The Chancellor stressed at the end of August in Ukraine that her country would do everything to extend the Russian-Ukrainian transit contract expiring in 2024. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had told her to consider Nord Stream 2 as a "dangerous geopolitical weapon".
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