Some theory...

GAZPROM mother sells gas to the Russian GAZPROM EXPORT OOO (the Russian version of a GmbH) in Petersburg. This sells the gas to GAZPROM Germania in Berlin. This in turn sells the gas to a large number of smaller subsidiaries with their various customers. So far, this strong division has served to minimize risks and taxes.

Customers pay the gas to the subsidiaries of GAZPROM Germania in EUR/USD. These are the much-cited “supply contracts”. GAZPROM Germania aggregates these payments and transfers them via Luxembourg (GAZPROM Bank) to the Russian GAZPROM EXPORT.

Therefore, only GAZPROM Germania (for Germany) is affected by the conversion of payments to GAZPROM EXPORT from EUR/USD to rubles. After all, end consumers in Germany do not buy from GAZPROM AG in SPB or from GAZPROM EXPORT in SPB, but from the subsidiaries of GAZPROM Germania. The new legal situation in the RF will not change anything for these end users with their EUR/USD contracts.

Instead of transferring the EUR/USD to Luxembourg, where these funds can be "frozen" at any time, GAZPROM Germania is now transferring the aggregated payments from its subsidiaries to Moscow, where they are forcibly converted and effectively revalue the ruble. To a certain extent, these funds are thus withdrawn from the EU's options for sanctions. And Habeck and Co. can (almost) do nothing about it.

But the west doesn't want that. The idea of the western values is that GAZPROM Germania receives payments from the subsidiaries, but cannot pass these funds on. At the given moment GAZPROM Germania can then be confiscated as part of a further level of sanctions together with its considerable account balances. The RF would then have supplied gas without receiving any payment. The moral justification for such an expropriation would then be “reparations to Ukraine”. The USA in particular has experience in this. Private German companies were selectively expropriated after 1918 in order to "pay" for war damage by the German Reich.

What is the counter-strategy of the RF?

GAZPROM (mother) instructs GAZPROM EXPORT to liquidate GAZPROM Germania. This eliminates the commercially necessary intermediate step for gas trading, the trading chain is interrupted and the supply comes to a standstill. Not because someone turned off the tap, but because the importer is "bankrupt". However, since this would be a quasi-hostile act by the RF (specifically planned insolvency of a strategic utility company), they do it more skilfully: GAZPROM Germania is sold. To shady offshore companies whose owners nobody knows and whose cash flows are as yet unknown. And these offshore companies first withdraw the capital from Luxembourg, leaving behind a GAZPROM Germania as an empty shell, which is then sent into insolvency.

Habeck wants to forestall this scenario. The BMWi places GAZPROM Germania under receivership in order to prevent GAZPROM Germania's assets from flowing out to the new owners. And to prevent GAZPROM Germania from transferring the capital collected from the subsidiaries to Moscow for compulsory exchange.

Only GAZPROM EXPORT could now stop selling to GAZPROM Germania if GAZPROM Germany does not pay in rubles.

The only question now is how quick the "new owners" were over the weekend. Because GAZPROM Germania was supposedly sold on April 1, 2022. So now, four days later, it is unclear whether GAZPROM Germania is already insolvent. If so, then Habeck and Co. would have a problem. On the one hand, they would have to save the company with significant financial contributions, if necessary, and on the other hand, they would then have the buck in their hands. Because if you now instruct the management of GAZPROM Germania not to bill in RUB, as requested by GAZPROM EXPORT, then you are breaking the contracts, not RF. After all, GAZPROM Germania and GAZPROM EXPORT can specify any currency for internal settlement, and these are in rubles for GAZPROM EXPORT by law.