“I find it very unfortunate that this entire discussion has come to focus on who blew [the pipelines] up, rather than who built them,” Heorhii Tykhyi told the BBC, forcefully.
He argued that Nord Stream had “untied Russia’s hands” to go to war, because it no longer needed to transit Ukraine for its gas to reach Europe.
“Did we warn about this? We did,” Tykhyi wanted to know. “Did anyone listen to us? No, no-one did.”
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Nobody remembers anything anymore, feels like. Back in the day, when Nord Stream was envisioned, the public opinion on Ukraine in Germany was “that is this corrupt post-soviet cleptocracy which steals our gas from transit pipelines”. Like, there were Russian AND German official investigations which came to the conclusion, that there’s gas going amiss during transit.
The whole gang who’s now into “Nord Stream was so wrong” basically was on a witch hunt against “those Ukrainian thieves, who steal our gas”, all those tabloids, media and everybody, which are now oh so smart about it 🙄.
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Another source I spoke to was “eaten alive by anxiety” over the investigation and baffled that Germany, a close ally of Ukraine, was even pursuing prosecution.
What’s so baffling there? The act of building the pipeline showed where Germany stands, or rather bends over, in relation to Russia.
Poland is great about this though:
Last year, he was arrested in Warsaw on a warrant issued by Germany but a Polish judge refused to extradite him.
In a dramatic twist, he ruled instead that a Ukrainian attack on Nord Stream, if that was what happened, would be a “just” act in a “bloody and genocidal war”.
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Germany is not a single person, its ruling politicians in the last quarter of a century are all equally spineless. The Greens showed spine but this didn’t seem to bring them sustained support at home.
Even worse, this generation of spineless leaders also got the upper hand throughout Europe, with the EPP and many EU institutions dominated by Germans. Let’s hope this pyrrhic victory sinks them down for good.
The German State sold out to Russia incredibly fast. Schröder deserves to sleep in a Lego bed every night.
Germany has a lot of war guilt to this day. And that’s not bad, per se, but at the same time, it has provided Germany and the German populace with two absolutely fucking massive geopolitical blind spots: Russia and Israel.
That is why Ukraine, the US and Poland in particular all loathed it.
Let’s be extremely clear, that Poland loathed it for a specific, different reason: There was and still is a pipeline from Russia to Germany, that is on land that goes through Poland. Which means there is a switch that Poland was in control of, that they could use politically, to threaten German Gas supply, independently of the diplomacy between Russia and Germany.
The thing they hated was losing that political leverage.
And let’s also be extremely clear, that the US is also a Gas exporting country, who was against the deal, because they don’t like Russia and have an economic interest in selling their own Gas.
Why Ukraine didn’t like it should be obvious.
But anyway, fuck the BBC for downplaying the political and economic interest involved.
The basis for the EU started with a pact between France and Germany, exchanging coal and steel. They HATED each other. And look where we are now. Merkel was an awful chancellor. But building on and believing into a chance that things could work out similarly between Russia and Germany and the rest of Europe was not stupid.
Last year, he was arrested in Warsaw on a warrant issued by Germany but a Polish judge refused to extradite him.
In a dramatic twist, he ruled instead that a Ukrainian attack on Nord Stream, if that was what happened, would be a “just” act in a “bloody and genocidal war”.
As one source close to the case put it to me: “The Poles don’t like Ukrainians, historically, but they hate Russians and Germans even more.”
Not a war officially involving Germany or Poland, at the moment. So, personal feelings over international law, huh? Anyway…
I don’t particularly care about the outcome tbh, the damage is done, nobody will propose to rebuild it at least not during the war. The individuals did wrong, but they also acted on orders. It’s not a case of a small theft where we’re expecting personal moral improvement. Everyone knew the legal and moral implications.
And also, the only possible actors were the US and Ukraine. That was clear from day one, the “the Russians did it” was silly. Why would they have blown up their own pipeline? The other neighboring countries would have stood nothing to gain, but if they were found out it would have been a massive political problem, not worth any benefits.
Ukraine has their back against the wall, they try everything, which I think is fine from that point of view.
The US could have ignored the political fallout and had a political and financial interest to do it.
But building on and believing into a chance that things could work out similarly between Russia and Germany and the rest of Europe was not stupid.
Schröder ending up on the board of gazprom immediately after ending his chancellery kind of dispels the notion that nordstream was built for any reason other than massive German government corruption.
Sure.
But if that corruption had achieved a friendly Russia and peace in Europe, I could easily justify looking the other way in that case.
Look at the situation of the war: billions in damages, millions of dead. If I could trade that for a handful of corrupt politicians who get a fraction of what it’s going to cost Europe to rebuild, I would, in seconds.
Corruption never works this way… Unless you could give me one historical example when it did?
Examples for corruption, and resource extraction related peace? There should be plenty, if that’s what you mean. Maybe you’ll count the united fruit related coup d’etat in guatemala. Afterwards there was “peace” and “cooperation”. There certainly was corruption involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d’%C3%A9tat
The oil situation in general? Idk what you would call the arrangement the rest of the world has with the gulf states.
Wait, resource extraction and peace? How are yours examples of peace? To me they are extreme examples of a war with one side dominating the other so much that they win the war outright, sometimes without even fighting. Even the Gulf stakes keep killing people, which I cannot agree is peace to anyone who doesn’t close their eyes.
Yeah, well, “peace” in the sense of “the opposite of declared international war”.
I am aware of the oppression, that’s actually the point. The “nations” legitimately or other have “agreed” to a peace deal that still definitely harms people, but less than in a full on “war”. There specifically isn’t an installed colonial administration or something. They’re did fake-ish elections and manipulated the democracy to put their supporters on top.
Even the Gulf stakes keep killing people
They’re not marching literal millions to either front lines to die, or into death camps. That’s the bar I’m referring to. An extremely shitty one, no argument there.
“the Russians did it” was silly. Why would they have blown up their own pipeline?
At the time I’d hoped that it was an anti Putin faction within Russia that had done it.
- building the pioeline was an act of.corruption
- trying to lessen german dependency from an increasingly fascist Magastan (at the time US) was a good initiative. Being able to balance between two evils gives more leeway (albeit little) than to fully depend on one
- destroying the pipeline was absolutely a legitimate objective for Ukraine as it reduced their enemies income sources funding the war
- magastan stood.on the sidelines and cheered, unavoidable side effect. Fuck them tho.
- prosecution in germany is kind of an insurance/german law regarding compensation thing, and the government has only limited influence on that. They have abused their influence on courts before but that doesn’t make it right. Seeking extradition may have been avoidable without financial repercussions (i.e. tax payers paying for unrealised gains by the stakeholders), but I don’t know
- a german government with a spine should have made a moral statement along the lines of “we get it, we’re not angry at you but we have to prosecute to satisfy our bloodthirsty investor shitheads”
/a german
