From Vesti news, starting with the Pipeline to the East, following up with the ‘agreement’ with the Ukraine and then at the 10:00 minute mark, quotes from the letter from the US authorities that went to Allseas.
Saker Message:
Something for New Years’ Day?
I remember, seems like yesterday, when i woke up to huge news JAN1/2009 that Russia had turned off the ngas to Uke.
To my surprise, when i searched for details, they also did it JAN1/2006.
Another surprise, found recently, so if you don’t care for the NY date, there’s this one soon after:
There is a rare formation coming, Monday 13th January 2020 when the Sun, Saturn and Pluto are all in conjunction at 22 degrees Capricorn. A rare triple conjunction that can be seen in the ephemeris.
Possibly what that “noted cyclist” was advising Putin about 6 months ago, when he claimed he personally met with Vlad to advise him specifically on WAR CYCLES!
Who knows if it even happened, because those self-promoters are also good at huckstering & BS.
And if those dates don’t suit, there’s others, like the USA long weekend holiday MLK Day JAN 18-20/2020.
Tis the season, like no other time of year, with so many holidays & long weekends so close together.
Hopefully your ‘hunch’ that gas could be shut down a week from now won’t come true. From what I have read it is a good contract given the circumstances, but it is not signed yet. There is a week of time to sign it and not all in Ukraine are happy about it in spite of media presenting the content as a victory for Ukraine. Which it is at least in that part that Gazprom will pay 2,9 billion usd, as corruptly ruled a court in Stockholm. Even that can be compensated by a loan Russia gave to Ukraine. Maybe Russians decided to cut their losses, as unjust as it is.
What is signed is a letter of intentions, one of the stipulates says intentions can’t be changed after signing, so the content of the contract is determined. But the contract needs to be signed too or there is nothing. I wonder which influence will win. We will see in a week.
Which “noted cyclist”? Is there a link to the story?
This was a peon to the EU. It assures the Ukies won’t freeze their fat asses and empty skulls, old and young will have gas for cooking and heating and what little energy their dying industry requires. So, EU wins.
But it also shows that Putin is flexible, can negotiate solutions that are easy to take, even making Gazprom “pay” the debt.
Again, the EU now has to protect its crown jewel economic horse, Germany. If gas for Ukraine was important, gas from NS-2 is imperative, vital, or the EU economy, largely led by Germany, will go deep into recession.
Buying substitute LNG from USA is no solution. It’s expensive, less powerful per unit than pipeline gas, and would make EU products more expensive, less competitive with US products.
So, the deal is a spur in the flanks of the Russophobes to get out of the way and let Russian gas flow to Germany and the other thirsty nations that require clean and affordable natural gas.
The US has thrown its sanctions scare into the companies aboard the pipeline construction. There will be a workaround and it will get completed.
The US lunatics are threatening a naval intercession to stop that last 7% of construction. I’m certain Shoigu and Putin will have a military answer to just such insanity. Can you say ‘Kalibr’?
Should be an interesting two-six months ahead.
As for sanctions, most of which are linked to Crimea returning to Mother Russia, Putin highlighted how ineffective they are with his train ride across the Kerch Bridge that links mainland to peninsula and Sevastopol linked to St. Petersburg. Proud and fierce, Vladimir Putin showed the West, the Ukies, the demented Russophobes that Crimea is and always was Russia.
Sanctions? Stick your sanctions where the sun don’t shine.
I hate my typos. Should read “This was a paean to the EU.”
Such a good analyst are you!
Brother Blue the iconoclast.
Tass is reporting that the Allseas pipelaying vessels are just standing off and they have not left ..
“The construction of Nord Stream 2 can be completed by either the Swiss company Allseas or Russia’s Akademik Chersky pipelaying vessel, Igor Yushkov, a senior analyst at the National Energy Security Fund, explained to Izvestia.
“However, the option, where Russia will complete the construction, is less likely, that’s Option B. Although many say that the Allseas Vessels left for good, in actual fact, they just floated to the German-Danish border, where they stand and wait. They did not even enter a German port,” the expert stressed.”
TASS story on Putin’s train ride:
https://tass.com/society/1102447
More:
https://tass.com/economy/1103333
The trip from St. Petersburg to Sevastopol will take 43 hours and 25 mins.
The trip costs ca. $56. I could maybe afford to live on this train!
I hope Rujssian Railways publsihes a map of the route.
I see at the Russian Railways site that St. Petersburg to Krasnodar is $106.
https://www.russianrailways.com/routes/st_petersburg-krasnodar
Does this mean that the trip to Sevastopol is subsidized in some way?
Katherine
VVP gets better and better.
He is now taking on the task of bringing the facts of the runup to WW2 before the Russian, ex-USSR, and world public.
This is a bit OT for gas, but on topic for any discussion of the West’s attempts to demonize not only Putin but all of Soviet history and to take this stance as a pretext for attacking Russia’s legitimate economic and other (e.g., transport) initiatives.
I am speaking of this fascinating video of Putin’s comments to heads of CIS states:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnEsZfs-ieQ
“Putin Brings the FACTS! Europe Made Deals With Hitler But Now Wants to Blame Russia For WWII!”
In the run-up to the big celebration of the Great Victory, Putin held a meeting with heads of CIS states, in which he laid out to them how their people, within the USSR, had alone fought off the Nazis after other European countries had played footsy with them and refused to cooperate with the Soviet Union to create a defense pact. He reads off a number of documents from Russian archives and comments eruditely, but with restrained outrage. He also comments briefly on how Stalin is now assessed, stating more or less that modern Russia has done or is doing the work to come to terms with Stalin.
One of the docs shows clearly how Poland participated in the partition of Czechoslovakia after Chamberlain signed the infamous Munich Agreement.
This is the background to the Ribbentrop Pact.
I believe that Putin’s detailed op-ed on this whole development will be explosive.
But will be studiously ignored in the USA mainstream.
Hopefully, however, not in other countries, and not in the US alternative media, where discussions of history are part of the debate on the US policy circus.
I think the publication of Putin’s essay, with many original documents on exhibit, will be timed to coincide with the Great Victory celebrations in May. I can’t wait to see this! And the documents from the state archives.
Katherine
Polish-Soviet War (1919-21) Polish invasion of the Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.
German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact (January 26, 1934)
Anglo-German Naval Agreement (18 June 1935)
Annexation of Czechoslovakia by Germany, Poland and Hungary (1938-9)
German–Danish Non-Aggression Pact (May 31, 1939)
German–Estonian Non-Aggression Pact (June 7, 1939)
German–Latvian Non-Aggression Pact (June 7, 1939)
and then finally
German–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (23 August 1939)
after refusals by Britain and France to form an anti-Nazi alliance with the Soviet Union.
>>Does this mean that the trip to Sevastopol is subsidized in some way?
For sure it is.
At the same time, in order to avoid falling under sanctions, Russian Railways does not sell tickets on its own, but offers to purchase tickets through an intermediary – https://rustrains.com or https://grаndtrаin.ru