The lukewarm initial position of some European countries regarding the war in Ukraine is closely related to the discovery of gigantic natural gas deposits in the former USSR, more than half a century ago, which helped the communist power to expand its influence in the continent to this day. One of the first was the Urengói, which was drilled for the first time in 1966. In 1981 it had already produced its first billion cubic meters. It is currently operated by the controversial company Gazprom, whose power is proportional to the 260 billion cubic meters of gas and 825,000 tons of oil it produces per year.
more depends on this production is Germany, as a result of the agreement signed between the German Federal Republic (FRG) and the Soviet Union. The first would provide technology to build gas pipelines in exchange for Russian natural gas, at a much cheaper price, of course. There was planted the seed of Europe’s energy dependence on Russia, which has become more evident than ever during the current invasion of Ukraine by President Vladimir Putin, with its more than 2,000 dead and two million displaced so far.
Olaf Scholz, who has been German chancellor for just three months, received strong criticism for his ambiguous position in the war, always with the shadow of energy dependence hanging over him. When he traveled to Washington for the first time in February and was received by Joe Biden at the White House, the press harshly criticized him for his refusal to send weapons to Ukraine in the event of the expected invasion – as it finally did. occurred-. Newsreels described him as an “invisible” leader.
Putin’s threat
Faced with pressure from European Union partners, Scholz subtly changed his position, which Russia did not like. As a result of this decision, this Monday Germany’s worst fears were confirmed: in a speech broadcast live on Russian public television, Putin’s vice president and number two, Alexander Nowak, openly threatened Berlin with cutting off the gas tap that It had been supplying him since the days of Leonid Brezhnev as leader of the USSR.
“We have every right to make a fair decision in response [a las sanciones] and to impose an embargo on the transit of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which is currently operating at its maximum capacity,” he declared. It was the way in which the Kremlin wanted to intimidate Germany, knowing full well that it currently transports a third of the gas consumed by the Germans. And, also, as a reaction to the Berlin government’s decision to suspend the licensing process for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that Russia was trying to put into operation.
Nowak suggested that Russia is being pushed in that direction by European politicians and their accusations. A full-fledged threat not only for Germany, but for the entire EU. It should not be forgotten that Europe currently consumes 500 billion cubic meters of gas a year, 40% of which is secured by the Russians. Through Nord Stream 1, 60 billion cubic meters flow each year. A very large amount that Moscow has always delivered with guarantees during all the crises it has gone through and even during the Cold War.
Relations with the USSR
It all started in 1955, when German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visited Moscow to establish diplomatic relations between the new FRG and the USSR. At that time, the communist empire was governed by Nikita Khrushchev, who three years later signed a very important trade agreement for Soviet history. By the early 1960s, the wealth of Russia’s oil and gas resources was already staggering, as evidenced by the fact that the Kremlin’s demand for large-diameter pipes manufactured by Germany soared. The first were destined for the Druzhba pipeline, the longest in the world, which came into operation in 1964.
President Kennedy took fright from the disproportionate growth of the Soviet energy sector and managed to impose, through NATO, an embargo on pipe exports from the FRG to the USSR. The Cold War was experiencing one of its most critical periods, with continuous political and, above all, economic confrontations, as is the case here. Before the end of the decade, however, the ‘Ostpolitik’ was launched, with which Chancellor Willy Brandt opened his country’s relations with the countries of Eastern Europe, including the GDR, which was a puppet state from Moscow.
This was the starting point for the historic agreement signed in 1970 between West Germany and the Soviet Union, according to which the FRG agreed to extend the Soyuz gas pipeline through what is now the Czech Republic, to take it to the state of Bavaria. It was an exchange of pipes for gas, which not a few historians and analysts have described as one of the most important turning points of the Cold War, since it established an unprecedented bridge of cooperation between Russia and the part of Europe that opposed it.
The beginning of the monopoly
The gas began to reach the two Germanies in 1973, but its supply increased with different agreements throughout the decade. The Soviet gas monopoly was beginning to consolidate, favored by the oil crisis. Kennedy’s successors in the presidency of the United States watched with concern the increase in this dependence on Europe. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan tried several times to convince Germany and other European countries to reduce the amount of Russian gas they imported, but he was unsuccessful.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Soviet Union increased gas supplies to Germany from 1.1 billion cubic meters in 1973 to 25.7 billion cubic meters in 1993. In the early 1990s, the large Russian state-owned company Gazprom had already been interested in the supplies passing through Ukraine, both because of the country’s poor infrastructure and for geopolitical reasons. In 2005, Putin and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder reached an agreement to start building Nord Stream 1, which would link the two territories across the Baltic Sea without going through the intermediate countries.
In this sense, post-Soviet Russia, under the command of Boris Yeltsin from 1991 to 1999, and later of Putin from 1999 to 2008 and since 2012, has re-emerged as a state in economic crisis that has found its source of power in this natural resource. and pressure from its closest competitor: the EU. “The evidence shows that current leaders view Russia’s natural resource endowment, and its hydrocarbons in particular, as the most important mechanism for restoring Russia’s position as a major power,” historian Harley Balzer explained in 2005.
The “collapse” of the USSR
A few weeks ago, President Putin claimed that “the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the looting of Russia’s wealth and left the country in a very difficult position.” However, in the last decade, Germany has continued to import Russian gas at historically high levels. At the same time, former Chancellor Angela Merkel launched the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which generated significant tensions with the United States, since they saw in this work a means by the Russian president to blackmail the leading European economy with energy.
The invasion of Ukraine precipitated the collapse of this facility, a 1,230-kilometre submarine tube that was completed at the end of last year and was to have an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic meters. It was regarding to come into operation, but two weeks ago Berlin unexpectedly announced the suspension of the pharaonic project. The next day, the president of the United States announced sanctions once morest this work, whose parent company is Gazprom.
“European politicians should honestly warn their citizens and consumers that fuel, electricity and heating prices are going to skyrocket. The power of raw materials is ready and will find other sales markets besides Europe and the United States,” Putin’s number two warned. The war for gas also continues.