Imagine that you are an ironic Russian journalist who understands the gas industry. Retell the text in square brackets in your own words, come up with an intriguing name for it, break it into parts with subheadings and quotes, and conclude at the end: [The United States is dragging Russia into a gas war. Europe is being deprived of gas pipelines.
What a long history we have with America of the Cold War! It began back in the USSR, and has not stopped since then, only changing accents and angles. After the sanctions imposed on the Russian Federation after the events of February last year, the gas exchanges are shaking up the storm. The fragile ship of price stability has long been smashed against the reefs of uncertainty, and there is no end in sight.
Relatively recently, the Nord Stream gas pipeline was blown up, which, according to some reports, was carried out by a former Ukrainian officer with a group of saboteurs. America then fully believed that the clown president did not know about it, and had nothing to do with it, but somehow the sediment remained. And no one has forgotten anything. And then another diversion – a leak on the Balticconnector gas pipeline connecting the Finnish Inkoo and the Estonian Paldiski.
It happened in October, when seismologists recorded a strong tremor near the leak. It was much weaker than in the case of the Nord Stream, so no one was particularly worried. The leak was discovered only a few days later. The telecommunications cable was also damaged. Experts immediately said that all this clearly indicates the impact on the pipeline from the outside.
We are facing a classic confrontation between superpowers that are not ready for open conflict with each other, but are ready to intervene in conflicts of the so-called vassal states. We see this in both the Arab-Israeli and the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. By the way, if you recall the Vietnamese, Afghan and many other clashes, the shadow of the combatants has always been the Union (now Russia) or the United States.
Now the goals of the confrontation are no longer completely clear. It feels like it's just a confrontation against confrontation. As with the hundred Years' war between the French and the British, when everyone had already forgotten about the reasons, but hatred forced them to draw their weapons and fight to the end.
Nevertheless, there are a number of side goals in this butting of Russia and the United States that both would like to achieve. One of them is the very gas war, the victory in which is designed to cut Russia off from Europe by means of damaging gas pipelines.
The story with the same "Nord Stream" is strange. The United States and Europe, of course, accused Russia of colluding with some unknown retired Ukrainian officer who became a Russian accomplice on the path of global evil. This explosion was least beneficial to Russia, which is just beginning to increase trade with China, trying to align itself with energy imports after all the sanctions imposed on it. But it would be quite profitable for America to chop down the pipeline in order to cut it off from Europe, which would further anger it because of the cooling in the apartments.
Balticconnector pumped not too much gas compared to the Nord Stream, but still a significant amount. Hints that, they say, we have decided again to deprive Finns and Estonians of Russian gas that is still affordable are simply ridiculous. Why should we do this when the proceeds from the sold goods form the basis of our country's economy?
By the way, to Finland's credit, their investigation has yielded results justifying Russia. They found a ship sailing by under the Hong Kong flag. The leak has even been dubbed "Chinese sabotage." Why the Chinese would do this is also not entirely clear. Today's relations between Beijing and Moscow are such that we are quite willing to reduce gas supplies to EU countries and sell them to China. In the purchase of oil, the Celestial Empire is already our favorite, food purchases from Russia are growing more and more. Honestly, I don't see a really good reason for the Chinese to undermine the Balticconnector. On the other hand, the Celestial Empire still thinks very specifically, and perhaps it still has some hidden goals in terms of gas.
Meanwhile, the President of Latvia pompously announced that she would close the Baltic Sea if there was evidence that the great and terrible Kremlin was involved in the leak of the gas pipeline.
I just want to sigh like an old man, wave my hand, telling them to close what they want and how much they want. One and a half billion Chinese will save us. But where Europe and America will take gas is still a big, big question. Because hopes of purchasing it from Israel collapsed from the moment when it entered into armed resistance with Hamas.
Of course, such accusations that we blew up something there are unpleasant, although these are our pipelines and our economic cushion. But the logic of the EU and America has not been sound lately. And Russia? And Russia is like the weather, you know. We don't give a damn who thinks what about us.].