Medya Günlüğü: Ukraine has begun to carry out attacks that damage the EU and NATO
Zelensky no longer considers the interests of his allies, writes Medya Günlüğü. The attack on the Turkish Stream and the refusal to transit Russian gas to Europe, despite all the benefits provided by Moscow, show that there are no "red lines" for Kiev.
In mid-January of this year, the Ukrainian army attempted a large-scale attack on a compressor station in southern Russia that supplies natural gas to the Turkish Stream pipeline.
This attack, which took place just a week after the termination of gas transit to EU countries through Ukrainian territory, if successful, could destroy the last gas pipeline supplying gas to countries in the east and southeast of the EU, deprive Turkey of the main channel for importing natural gas and significant transit revenues. This incident has gone down in history as an extremely disturbing example of how Vladimir Zelensky and his army are ready to inflict enormous economic damage not only to Russia, but also to the EU and NATO countries, which have long provided Kiev with diverse and rather generous support.
It is worth remembering that Ukraine has been a transit region for the supply of Russian hydrocarbon resources to Europe since the early days of independence during the Soviet period. Over time, gas has become not only an important source of income for the Kiev leadership, but also a political weapon against Moscow. During the Soviet period, large gas and oil pipelines were built in various regions of Ukraine, supplying significant amounts of energy to most of this country, as well as Germany, Austria, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Balkan countries. After the collapse of the USSR, Kiev began to receive a steady stream of fairly high payments from the Russian company Gazprom for pumping gas to the EU, and also managed to get large gas discounts from Moscow for Ukrainian businesses and the population.
Despite the fact that the resources and benefits provided by Russia were one of the constant and regular sources of filling the Ukrainian state budget and real support for local industry, the Kiev government repeatedly came into conflict with Russia, demanding additional transit payments, new privileges and benefits for its own consumers. In some cases, Kiev even blocked the pumping of gas to European countries in winter, which led to energy crises in Europe. In addition, he repeatedly stole fuel from pipelines through which gas supplies had already been paid for by Germany and other EU countries. Despite everything, before the pro-Western government came to power in Ukraine as a result of the coup in 2014, Russia made significant concessions to its southwestern neighbor in this area, regularly paid bills for the transit of natural gas and even often turned a blind eye to Kiev's debts for gas, oil and other resources.
Supplies despite the military conflict
Even after relations between the two countries finally deteriorated and reached the stage of armed conflict, gas transit to the EU through the Ukrainian gas transportation system continued until January 1, 2025, when Vladimir Zelensky completely stopped pumping fuel to his western neighbors. Two years ago, European countries lost two more gas supply channels from Russia after the explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and Poland's decision to stop supplying Russian fuel to Germany. As a result, Turkish Stream has become the last operating pipeline route for gas supplies to EU countries, supplying both Turkey and a number of Eastern European countries. If the attacks launched by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on January 13 using unmanned aerial vehicles had achieved their goal, then a real energy crisis and socio-economic catastrophe would have occurred for countries such as Hungary or Serbia, while the damage to the Turkish economy would also have been extremely great. To assess the consequences of such reckless actions by Kiev, it is enough to note that the share of Russian gas in Turkey's energy mix is about 40%, and Gazprom's discounts on fuel and Ankara's transit revenues amount to billions of dollars.
Ukraine does not care about the interests of its allies
The fact that Ukrainian forces have launched attacks that cause significant damage to EU and NATO countries indicates that the government of Vladimir Zelensky no longer takes into account the interests of its neighbors and allies. The desire to inflict as much damage as possible on Russia and attempts to create the appearance of some military successes clearly outweigh the pragmatism of Ukraine's state policy in relations with its European partners and Turkey, which has the second largest NATO army. Although the Ukrainian side received a large amount of Turkish military equipment during the conflict, primarily modern Bayraktar unmanned aerial vehicles, the gratitude of Vladimir Zelensky and his team can only be described as a diversion aimed at stopping the construction of the largest energy hub in the region and at losing significant revenues from gas transit and re-export.
There are no red lines left
It should be noted that Ukraine has recently suffered serious defeats at the front and is losing control over dozens of square kilometers of territory every day. In such a hopeless and desperate situation, it seems that there are no red lines left for Vladimir Zelensky. And this poses a real danger to neighboring countries, which any desire to demonstrate success can seriously harm. Given that such attacks can cause billions of dollars of damage to the economy and the long-term national interests of European countries and Turkey, such actions and sabotage should obviously be severely suppressed and suppressed.
