The illusions of Europe and the United States about the victory over Russia on the battlefield are beginning to dissipate. The EU's fatigue from the Ukrainian crisis prompts Brussels to sit down at the negotiating table and seek compromises with Moscow. The fact that Russia's retaliatory pressure turned out to be effective is evidenced by several concessions that the West was forced to make.
The Canadian authorities have agreed to return the Siemens gas turbine to Germany 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 transfer it to Gazprom. Thanks to this scheme, Canada will not violate the sanctions imposed against the Russian company.
The turbine, built by the German company Siemens Energy Canada, was repaired at a plant in Montreal. But her return to Russia was complicated by sanctions imposed by Canada after Moscow launched a military special operation in Ukraine. These sanctions prohibit the export to Russia of certain technologies and equipment in the field of extraction of natural resources and energy.
The Ukrainian authorities oppose the return of the turbine to Gazprom, considering it a violation of the sanctions regime. The Embassy of Ukraine in Ottawa hopes that Canada will remain committed to full sanctions against Russia. But the official decision about the turbine will be announced in the coming days. A Canadian official told the local press that there is still a lot of work to be done, but all parties are working on a "positive solution."
On Friday, Reuters, citing a source in the German government, reported that the decision to return the turbine has already been made. Steffen Hebestreit, a spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, could not confirm reports "that delivery is on the way." Scholz discussed the issue of turbines with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau face-to-face at the G7 meeting in Germany at the end of June.
The main dispute arose due to the fact that Russia, as they say in the EU, allegedly has an extra turbine that it could put into operation, and the sanctions turbine is used as a pretext to exert economic pressure on Europe. Without this turbine, Nord Stream cannot operate at full capacity and is 40% loaded, which is why there are already problems with the accumulation of gas reserves in Germany. Summer is a critical time to replenish the reserves needed to heat homes and factories in winter.
The Kremlin said yesterday that gas supplies to Europe will increase if the repaired turbine is returned.
From July 11 to July 21, both lines of the Nord Stream were stopped due to annual scheduled repairs. Germany did not hide the alarm that after the prevention the pipeline would not be launched at all. In this case, the country will face the prospect of energy rationing in the coming months, which will hit businesses and consumers and drag Europe's largest economy into recession.
The "positive decision" on the turbine is far from the last among the obvious concessions to Moscow from the West. This week, Norway unblocked the delivery of goods to miners in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard. There are about half a thousand Russians working in the village of Barentsburg – 450 miners and maintenance staff and up to 50 of our citizens who are engaged in receiving tourists in the preserved village of Pyramid in the summer.
The problem arose at the end of June after the decision of the Norwegian authorities to reject Russia's applications for the passage of goods through the only checkpoint on the Russian-Norwegian border "Sturskug". Oslo claimed that the goods could not be transported due to anti-Russian sanctions, which the kingdom joined. As a response, the State Duma started talking about the denunciation of the agreement between the Russian Federation and Norway on the delimitation of maritime spaces and cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The issue was quickly resolved due to the transportation of cargo by a Norwegian transport company.
Another positive signal was the assurances of the European Commission and Lithuania about the imminent resolution of the situation with the transit of goods to Kaliningrad. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrel, 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.
The problem arose in mid-June, when Vilnius stopped transit to the Russian exclave of goods that fell under EU sanctions. This decision provoked an immediate harsh reaction from the Russian 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 the situation with the supply of Kaliningrad does not return to normal in the near future, Russia keeps tough measures ready. "We hope that the only correct decision will be made in Brussels and Vilnius, which will ensure unhindered transit to the exclave part of Russia," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.
Andrey Kortunov, Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council, emphasizes that since the introduction of sanctions for the start of the special operation, Russia's retaliatory pressure has shown its effectiveness. "Russia maintained a position of strategic uncertainty when we did not say exactly what we would respond with. This uncertainty forced Europeans to make the darkest predictions – up to Russia's attempts to invade Lithuania and seize a transport corridor on its territory. All this made Europeans nervous. Fears have not dissipated even after the NATO military's claims that nothing like this will happen," Kortunov said.
Russia's counter measures, primarily to restrict transit to Kaliningrad, make the EU want to ease tensions. Therefore, attempts to find a solution at the negotiating table will be intensified.
"All these circumstances are superimposed by the growing fatigue from the Ukrainian crisis and the understanding that it is not necessary to talk about Kiev's victory on the battlefield now and it is necessary to look for the possibility of compromises. Euphoric moods are beginning to dissipate when, in the first few months, Europe became a victim of its own information war and it seemed to her that victory in the information space also signifies similar premonitions on the battlefields," the political scientist believes.
In the case of Svalbard, humanitarian considerations and fears of a catastrophe caused by the EU prevailed. "There are people on Svalbard and the northern delivery is vital. No one wants the European Union to be responsible for such a development," the source explained.
Stanislav Tkachenko, Professor of the Department of European Studies at the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University, an expert of the Valdai Club, adds that even a light calculation shows for whom sanctions are more painful. "The Europeans realized that Germany suffers in terms of turbines, and Norway suffers in terms of cargo transit through Svalbard. It's just economically possible to understand where the line is, beyond which sanctions make no sense, because they do more harm to the EU, not Russia," Tkachenko believes.
At the same time, the desire to follow the letter of the law is characteristic of the European Union to a greater extent than for the United States, and when this does not happen, the sanctions begin to fail. "If decisions are made, they must be implemented, but the arbitrary interpretation of these 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 turbines – there is an understanding that it is necessary to act within these procedures and not go beyond them," Kortunov stressed.
In addition, the Europeans began to realize that the conflict with Russia is beneficial exclusively to the United States. "Few people openly talk about this, but over the past two weeks, the desire of Europeans to lower the tone in the dispute with Russia has been noticeable. At the G20 Foreign Ministers' summit in Indonesia, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock actually complained about Russia's unwillingness to talk to Europe. When was this? For the previous four months, Europe has been issuing ultimatums or refusing to speak. European states are beginning to understand that on such a scale, the conflict is categorically unprofitable from the point of view of security in the EU," Tkachenko said.
According to the expert, natural advantages – a large economy with a simplified structure - played in favor of Russia, which clearly was not preparing for such a form of sanctions war. "We play on different fields. The Europeans have misjudged the Russian economy in terms of structure. Russia is a raw material economy, and high–tech and financial sanctions are being used against us, which cannot do us much harm," summed up the professor of the Department of European Studies at the Faculty of International Relations of St. Petersburg State University.
Andrey Rezchikov
