Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Germany is caught in Putin’s trap

(Credit: Getty images)

A collective sigh of relief went through Berlin this week as Russia resumed its gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline after a scheduled ten-day maintenance break. But even with the immediate crisis averted, Germany remains palpably jittery: it is unclear whether it will have enough gas to get through the winter.

Threats from Vladimir Putin to curb or even stop energy supplies to Europe altogether have been part of the Russian war strategy right from the beginning. Shortly before the invasion of Ukraine in February, when the German chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a halt to the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev sneered: ‘Well. Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2,000 for 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas!’

Since then, Putin has been keen to highlight the vulnerability that Germany’s dependence on Russian gas, oil and coal has created. The Kremlin has already cut off other countries, such as Poland and Bulgaria, from its gas supplies. Last month, the state-controlled energy giant Gazprom blamed a missing Siemens turbine for cutting Nord Stream 1 flows down to 40 per cent of capacity: a staggering amount given that the pipeline is capable of delivering 55 billion cubic metres a year to Europe.

Putin indicated on Wednesday that gas flows could be reduced even further. Speaking to reporters during a visit in Iran, he stressed that the missing turbine, which had been sent to Canada for repairs due to the ‘crumbling of (its) inside lining’ had still not been returned, impairing the pipeline’s capacity. 

Germany is now bracing itself for a looming crisis

‘There are two functioning machines there, they pump 60 million cubic metres per day…If one is not returned, there will be one, which is 30 million cubic metres,’ the Russian president continued ominously.

So Europe held its breath as specialists monitored the return of the gas flow through Nord Stream 1.

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