Gazprom stopped its gas deliveries to Poland, Nord Stream 1 is running at half its capacity and will even undergo maintenance in July, Ukraine is also not permitted to transport all the gas that it could. For Germany this means re-opening coal plants; plans for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants are suspended, LNG terminals are being built at an accelerated pace, an energy saving campaign was announced, and everyone everywhere is talking about how to save on gas.
This is insanity. From all sides—strategic, military, etc. — this decision is just as crazy as the decision to capture Kyiv in 48 hours. If a person at the head of the government is making such decisions—they are not of sound mind.
Germany, cleverly tangled in Russian gas pipes by Putin, having become Russia’s main gas hub in Europe, was the key European ally of the Russian president. Germany’s Chancellor lied, evaded, lied again, demanded Zelensky capitulate, refused to send arms supplies to Ukraine and would not let others do so (let us remember Germany blocking Spain from providing Ukraine with tanks or halting Greek deliveries of BMP-1P tracked armoured IFVs)—all for one reason. Because Scholz was standing on the Russian gas pipe, and he was spinning on it in all directions. He understood that renouncing Russian gas would lead to every German Frau, whose gas bill had doubled, voting against him, and that is not taking into account chemical plants in Ludwigshafen.
And now — enraged by the fact that Scholz, who had arrived in Ukraine with a brilliant plan for Ukraine’s capitulation, à la Kissinger, did not manage to convince Zelensky—Putin himself cut off the gas supply he had got Germany addicted to.
Threatening someone with a gas war (same as a normal one) only works until you have actually started one. When the war has begun, it is too late for blackmail. It is time to fight.
Now, Scholz has free reign. Before, Germany was trapped. It was too dependent on Russian gas — which, by the way, ex-US President Trump loved pointing out.
Any attempt to change the status quo would cost a lot of money, anger Russia, and make the government lose the election.
Now, finding an alternative to Russian gas is an urgent necessity. Germans right now resemble a person that spent years buying food in a store run by an insane owner. The owner would occasionally chase his neighbour with a knife, or steal chickens from another neighbour, or run naked down the road waving his arms around. Sometimes the store would stay closed in the morning, when our German was in a rush to get to work — meanwhile, the owner would build a pillar near the store, and, sitting on the top covered in feathers and diamonds, would scream: “Respect my values!” All of this, of course, embarrassed our German. But the owner had an unkillable trump card: the items in his store were cheaper, and the store’s location was more convenient.
Even when our German heard that the owner had finally stormed into the neighbour’s house, burnt down the annex, where the neighbour’s son lived, together with the son and his family, had raped the neighbour’s daughter-in-law, and stolen the washing machine from the main house, which he later put on the pillar near the store as a sign of the aforementioned values — even then our German would go to the neighbour and try to convince him to end the fight peacefully and concede that the annex, burnt together with his son, belongs to the crazy store owner — the store was just too convenient to give up.
But suddenly our German came back and saw that the store was on fire, and the crazy store owner was dancing around the building, screaming: “Here you go, bastards! You won’t see any more of my products.”
You have to admit, in this scenario one just has to find another store to shop at. And there are no more incentives to continue convincing your neighbour to give up the burnt down annex.
Lately, Putin has not had much luck on the foreign policy arena. First, Scholz, Macron, and Draghi went to Kyiv to persuade Zelensky to sign the surrender, and, after getting the same response as the Russian military warship (the Russia warship that was told to go fuck itself — translator’s note), began to save—as Andrey Piontkovsky cleverly noted— not Putin’s face but their own asses.
Then, Putin called a joint Economic Forum with the Taliban (organisation considered terrorist by the UN), so the world could see the new International of outcasts. At that forum, President Tokayev, who has Putin’s military to thank for his accession to the throne after a small civilian massacre, humiliated Putin publicly. Keep in mind that the Kazakhstan’s president said he did not recognise neither the occupied territories of Ukraine, nor Taiwan. In other words, in one sentence he not only left the list of Putin’s vassals but also recognised China’s suzerainty. De-facto, Tokayev was speaking on behalf of China. Comrade-in-Chief Xi Jinping did not come to the forum himself but did send his younger brother, who basically relayed the message that China considers Putin’s reign to be over.
And then, little Lithuania banned the rail transit of Russian goods to Kaliningrad, and it turned out that the only thing the second army in the world is capable of is screaming sanctions.
Simultaneously, let us not forget the most important thing, Ukrainian artillery from Marinka, a small town located 8 km away from the suburbs of Donetsk, is firing at Donetsk and, more importantly, at the Trudivske hills, which reign over Donetsk and which could now be taken by Ukrainians. People are running from Donetsk, there are 15-hour long queues at the border; meanwhile, the Russian propaganda that has spent 8 years crying wolf has nothing to say. The topic of “wolves attacking peaceful Donetsk” has already been exhausted.
Even though Ukraine will not be taking a one million-person city right now, it can easily capture the Trudivske hills, or at least make a part of Russian artillery, which is currently trying to take Lysychansk, go back to defend Donetsk, deserted by both cannon fodder and cannons.
All these years, Putin has been using the same bandit scheme, which is what the Kremlin considers geopolicy.
You have to create a problem, and then offer to solve it on your terms. If no one agrees, you have to create a second problem, to replace the first with. In other words, open the second front. Putin has always escalated conflicts. For example, to lift sanctions on Crimea, he went to Syria.
And here, during this war, we have seen endless attempts to create a “second problem”. When Russia did not manage to pave a corridor from Crimea to Transnistria, it started to use the Snake Island to hide air landing troops being sent to Moldova. But the troops never ended up going to Moldova because, as it turned out, there were just not enough soldiers.
Later, Putin tried to bring the world to its knees by amplifying the made-up hunger problem. A grain related second front was also not a go. He tried to make Lukashenka launch the second front. Lukashenka not only did not do that but instead started negotiations with the EU on how to slyly sell out Putin.
And now, Putin has started a second, gas war. Against Germany.
Here is the thing. What do you think, what are the chances that at this precise moment—when nothing came of Putin trying to drag Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus, and Kazakhstan into his problems — Putin will be able to win against Germany? And what do the members of Putin’s cult think about their leader’s recent behaviour?
Seems to me, that the Kremlin is seeing the words “mene, tekel, upharsin*” burn on its wall in cheerful, blue flames of gas fire.
*Aramaic: weighed, numbered, divided