VIEW / Russia forced Europe to make important concessions :: Politics
The illusions of Europe and the United States about defeating Russia on the battlefield are beginning to dissipate. Tired of the EU from the Ukrainian crisis, the fall of Brussels to sit down at the negotiating table and look for compromises with Moscow. The fact that Russia’s retaliatory pressure turned out to be effective, a few concessions that the West was forced to make.
Canadian authorities have agreed to return to Germany a Siemens gas turbine for the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which runs along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. According to a preliminary agreement with the Canadians, Berlin will hand it over to Gazprom. Thanks to this Canadian scheme, which does not violate the rules against Russian companies.
The turbine, built by the German company Siemens Energy Canada, was being repaired at a plant in Montreal. But her return to Russia was complicated by the sanctions imposed by Canada after the start of the Moscow military special operation in Ukraine. These sanctions prohibit the export to Russia of certain technologies and equipment in the field of natural resources and energy.
The Ukrainian authorities oppose the turnover of the turbine to Gazprom, this is a violation of the sanctions regime. The Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa hopes that Canada remains committed to full sanctions against Russia. But officially the fight against turbines will be announced in the coming days. A Canadian official talks about heavy losses, that there is still a lot of work to be done, but they are all working towards a “positive outcome”.
On Friday, Reuters, citing a source in the German government, said that the decision to return the turbine had already been made. Steffen Hebestrait, a spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was unable to verify reports “that a delivery is on its way.” Scholz discussed the turbine issue with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in private at a G7 meeting in Germany in late June.
The main controversy arose from the fact that Russia, as they say in the EU, has an extra turbine that could be injected into emissions, and the sanctions turbine was used as an excuse for economic pressure in Europe. Without this connection, Nord Stream cannot operate at full capacity and is loaded at 40%, in which Germany already has problems with the accumulation of gas reserves. Summer is a critical time for replenishment of reserves, a pleasant time for heating houses and operating factories in winter.
The Kremlin announced yesterday that gas supplies to Europe will increase if the repaired turbine is returned.
From July 11 to July 21, both lines of Nord Stream were stopped due to annual scheduled repairs. Germany does not hide the alarm that after the prevention of the lockdown, it will not be launched at all. In that case, the country would face the prospect of energy rationing in the coming months, hurting businesses and consumers and pushing the spread of Europe into recession.
The “positive decision” on the turbine is far from recent among Moscow’s obvious concessions from the West. This week, Norway unblocked the delivery of goods to miners in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. About 500 Russians work in the village of Barentsburg – 450 miners and service personnel, and up to 50 of our citizens, who usually receive tourists in the summer in the mothballed village of Piramida.
The problem arises at the end of June after the decision of the government of the government to reject Russia’s applications for the passage of goods through the Russian-Norwegian border at the Storskog checkpoint. Oslo claimed that the goods could not be transported due to anti-Russian arrests, which the kingdom joined in. As an answer to questions in the Duma, they started talking about the denunciation of the agreement between the Russian Federation and Norway on the delimitation of the maritime space and basin in the Gosbarents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The issue was quickly resolved by weight reduction by a heavy shipping company.
Another positive signal was the assurances of the European Commission and Lithuania that the situation with the transit of goods would soon be resolved in Kaliningrad. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said that the EU is not going to impose a blockade of the Kaliningrad region and sanctions directives restricting the flow of goods and cargo will be revised.
There is a problem in mid-June, when transit to Vilnius is widespread in Russia for exclave goods that have fallen under dependence. This decision provoked an immediate tough check by the local authorities, because we are talking about the transportation of goods within the country, only due to geographical features, part of the route runs through the EU.
If Kaliningrad’s supply situation does not return to normal in the near future, Russia has tough measures at the ready. “We expect that the only solution will be adopted in Brussels and Vilnius to ensure unimpeded transit in the exclave part of Russia,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
Andrey Kortunov, the director general of the Russian Council for the INF Affairs, ruled out that since the discovery of the detention for the start of a special operation, Russia’s retaliatory pressure has shown its effectiveness. “Russia has accumulated reserves of strategic uncertainty, when we definitely didn’t kill, how will we respond. This uncertainty forced the Europeans to make the most gloomy forecasts – to the high degree of probability of Russia’s invasion of Lithuania and the seizure of its territory of the corridor. All this unnerved the Europeans. “Fears have not dissipated even after incidents by the NATO military that nothing is happening,” Kortunov said.
Countermeasures in Russia, primarily at the transit border in Kaliningrad, make the EU want to reduce the severity. Therefore, they will step up to find a solution for discussion.
“The growing fatigue from the Ukrainian crisis and the understanding that there is no need to talk about the victory of Kyiv on the battlefields now apply to all these processes and we have to look for the possibility of compromises. Euphoric moods are starting to dissipate when, in the first few months, Europe has become a victim of its own information war and it is obvious to it that victory in the information space is also referred to as a premonition on the battlefields,” the political scientist believes.
In the case of Svalbard, the humanitarian nature and the danger of catastrophes caused by the EU prevailed. “People live on Svalbard and the northern delivery is vital. Nobody wants the European Union to be responsible for such a development of events,” the interlocutor explained.
Stanislav Tkachenko, professor of the Department of Scientific Research at the Faculty of International Relations at St Petersburg University, an expert of the Valdai Club, adds that even a simple calculation shows for whom the punishment is more painful. “The Europeans realized that Germany is responsible for the partial transit of goods, and Norway for the partial transit of goods through Svalbard. It is simply economically possible to understand where the line lies, beyond which there is no significance, because in this case there is more harm to the EU, and not to Russia, ”Tkachenko believes.
At the same time, more than the United States, exploitation is characterized by a desire to follow the letter of the law, and when this does not happen, the decision to start to fail. “If decisions are made, they must be implemented, but the public interpretation of decisions always raises objections from the EU, which has a desire to do everything according to the law. This applies not only to decisions on the confiscation of Russian property, but also to turnover – there is an understanding that it is necessary to act within the framework of procedures and non-distribution for them, ”Kortunov said.
In addition, the Europeans began to understand that the conflict with Russia is beneficial only to the United States. “Few people reported it, but the last two weeks of sick Europeans have lowered the tone in the dispute with Russia. At the G20 foreign affairs summit in Indonesia, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock actually extended to Russia’s unwillingness to talk to Europe. When was this? For the past four months, Europe has either issued ultimatums or refused to speak. Low levels of crime are beginning to realize that on such a scale, the conflict is categorically disadvantageous from the point of view of security in the EU,” Tkachenko says.
According to the expert, in using Russia, which is clearly not ready for this form of sanctions war, there are natural advantages – a large economy with a simplified structure. “We play on different fields. The Europeans have misjudged Russian dynamics in terms of structure. Russia is a resource-based economy, and a wealthy and financial department is being used against us, which is not included in the group to do much harm to us, ”summed up the professor at the European Research Faculty of International Relations at St. Petersburg State University.