Russia's energy empire: Putin and the rise of Gazprom | DW Documentary

Russia: home to the world's largest natural gas reserves. Gas is necessary, especially in Europe. And the end of the Cold War ushered in an era of conflicting

energy

dependencies and concern in the West. You are giving hard currency to the Soviet Union and they are using it to strengthen their army. And this will come back to haunt us. Meanwhile, the 1980s marked the beginning of one man's extraordinary career. As a case officer, you must be able to manipulate people. There is no such thing as a former KGB guy. Gas is one of their two main tools of coercion, leverage and influence.

Soviet traditions continue... Dependencies on oil and gas as a political weapon were par for the course under the Warsaw Pact. One of the most powerful men in the world has strategically wielded what is probably his most effective weapon. With the help of Gazprom, Vladimir Putin has implemented policies designed to instill fear in the rest of the world. The sole purpose of Nord Stream was to be able to put pressure on Central and Eastern Europe. Nord Stream 1 was a project intended to allow the Russians to play hardball against us. The Yamal Peninsula in Western Siberia. The indigenous people of the region maintain ancient traditions in the tundra here.

The Nenets are reindeer herders. And Majko Seroetto is their leader. He is responsible for this group of about 40 Nenets. They are on the move every day. Everything is going pretty well now. It is much more difficult in the fall. The Nenets migrate to feed their animals. But their path has become increasingly difficult in recent years. The once untouched nature of the Yamal Peninsula no longer exists. We still have the most difficult crossing ahead of us: Bovanenkovo. It is a long stretch with a wide river and cement roads. Concrete roads divide the tundra in two to provide access to one of Russia's largest natural gas deposits.

The Bovanenkovo ​​gas field. Operated by Gazprom, the world's largest extraction company. The blue gold business has been about politics, money and above all power. For decades. Energy industry explorers are always looking for a giant. You are looking for a large field, with a low unit cost, that will provide you with a supply for 30 years. And, as far as we know, there are very few giants left in the world. And one country has benefited disproportionately. For Germany, the Russian hydrocarbon and gas base is huge. So for a great offer and a low unit cost, there is nothing better from a purely economic point of view than a cheaper offer from Russia.

Jürgen Hambrecht headed BASF, the largest chemical company in the world, for eight years. Gas means three things to BASF: First, and most importantly, it is a raw material. Chemistry begins with the carbon atom. Secondly, we need a lot of heat. And thirdly, we also need electricity to run our plants. We need natural gas. BASF's gas strategy has always focused on one thing: risk minimization. That means access to oil and gas. That's why we wanted to cover up to 50% of our carbon needs ourselves. That was the driving force behind everything we did. BASF, EON and Gazprom signed a contract for the construction of a gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea just before the German parliamentary elections in 2005.

In 2003 we joined the joint venture to develop a new gas field in Western Siberia. So we said: Well, let's bring cheap gas to Central Europe. The idea was to connect Germany through this gas pipeline with our gas fields. Therefore: Nord Stream 1. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been a key ally of BASF for years. I have German interests to represent, especially with regard to the

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security of the German economy. Former NATO analyst Richard Anderson described in 2006 how natural gas could threaten Europe's security. It is quite typical for military analysts to look at energy and how it can often be a source of conflict.

Russia's energy dominance is an area of ​​concern that NATO analysts have certainly been analyzing for the past few decades. Natural gas is used to produce electricity and for heating. It is the basic element that is used to make plastics, to make fertilizers. It is the lifeblood of many industrial economies. This is an old map of the Soviet Union. Here, in the center, you can see some of the main natural gas and oil fields that were developed during Soviet times. In the case of Russia I think it's become pretty clear, especially lately, that energy can often be the precursor to war.

In 1963, the Kennedy administration attempted to prevent the construction of the Druzhba pipeline from the Soviet Union to Eastern Europe. Mannesmann provided the pipes and other equipment. The American government, the Kennedy administration, told them to stop doing it. Which they did. West German Chancellor Willy Brandt ushered in the country's new “Ostpolitik” – thawing relations, détente and trade. Contracts were signed for the construction of gas pipelines. In 1970, work began on an oil pipeline that would finally connect Siberia with Germany. Nikolai Orudschev, Soviet Minister of the Gas Industry, concluded together with his German partners an agreement worth billions. Gas from the Soviet Union arrived at the transfer station for the first time.

Go to the launch! Economy Minister Friderichs and his Soviet guests welcomed the gas launch as a result of a normalization of relations. For the Russians, the deal was basically about the hard currency they needed, because their economy was faltering and they needed money from the West to keep the whole show going. Helmut Schmidt, Brandt's successor, also turned to Siberian gas. A second pipeline to Europe was built. During Chancellor Schmidt's visit to Moscow, German companies signed a third such contract, valid until the year 2000. Schmidt deflected American President Jimmy Carter with the words: Trading partners don't shoot each other.

In fact, President Carter apparently wrote in his notes that he was really tired of the United States providing the stick and the Europeans competing to provide the carrot to incentivize Soviet behaviors. The United States, Washington, looked at this and said: they are giving hard currency to the Soviet Union and they are using it to strengthen their army. And this will come back to haunt us. That was even an argument back then: they are becoming dependent on the Soviet superpower, our ideological opponent. How can you, as members of NATO, do such a thing? The concerns on the American side were about dependency: that Russia would use energy as a political weapon and that it would put Europe and Germany in a position where they could not stand up to the Soviet Union.

And all this was seen as part of an overall Soviet strategy to weaken the West and disintegrate NATO. The situation in Poland then reached a boiling point. The government imposed martial law in 1981 despite protests by the Solidarnosc union. And the new US president, Ronald Reagan, reacted with sanctions to disrupt Russia's natural gas trade. The United States is taking immediate steps to suspend important elements of our economic relations with the Polish government. We propose to our allies a greater restriction on high-tech exports to Poland. The new Soviet pipeline to Germany was built anyway. The sanctions were actually not very effective and also divided the West.

Margaret Thatcher said: We are losing jobs because we cannot supply equipment for that pipeline. American companies were not happy about this. The United States also sold components, and the American argument was: if we can't sell these things, then our competitors in Europe will sell the equipment. So in the end they dropped the sanctions. It is no secret that our allies did not agree with this action. But I am pleased to announce that the industrialized democracies have reached substantial agreement on a plan of action. In the 1980s they reached a compromise that put a limit on the amount of Soviet gas going to Europe and also guaranteed that Norwegian gas would get to Europe, so that there was some diversification.

Washington tried to convince Germany to stop relying on Russian gas. But the majority continued to come from Siberia. When he was a young diplomat, he was in the embassy in Washington and the ambassador was very proud of having successfully argued against the US embargo on the pipeline. We were all inspired by the idea that what we were doing was part of the policy of improving relations. It made sense to everyone. I don't really remember anyone saying at the time: This is going in the wrong direction. But American intelligence services were not happy. CIA chief William Casey developed a top-secret plan with President Reagen's blessing.

Vienna, the spy capital of the world. I was your typical black market dealer. Especially mainframe computers, measuring instruments for nuclear physics. Really delicate things that less developed states couldn't do on their own. I trained in the East German state security, where I was recruited. And then, of course, after a break, I worked in the Soviet Union. The CIA monitored me for more than a year, until one day, when the time came, they decided to intervene. They said he had a choice: at least 20 years in prison or work for them. The CIA supplied the black market specialist with expensive high-tech products whose sale to the Soviet Union was prohibited.

The Soviet Union reacted as expected. Some GRU people suddenly appeared at the hotel. Two gentlemen politely asked me to answer some questions. That turned into a six-hour interrogation, because the technological equipment had clearly been tampered with. In reality, everything was compromised. Then I discovered that the first big computer I had sold (a huge thing made of cabinets) had caught fire. Reagan and his CIA chief had their sights set primarily on the Siberian oil pipelines. I am convinced that a wide variety of technology was being delivered. There is a famous case of a gas pipeline being damaged by a contaminated unit purchased in the West.

The software managing one of the Soviet Union's largest gas pipelines failed in June 1982, just as the CIA had planned. The result was a huge explosion. Then the hunt for saboteurs began. No doubt. If they caught me, I'd be dead. It was that simple. I was very, very happy to have survived. Surviving was the greatest triumph of my life. A Russian engineer was detained on a Moscow street in 1985. A CIA spy. He was later executed and the pipeline was soon repaired. As usual. Vladimir Putin was at the time training as a KGB agent. He was sent to East Germany in 1985.

Someone asked him: What did you do in Dresden? And he said... You know, he was a KGB case officer and he said: he was working with people and documents. Putin became a regular KGB presence in Dresden. He regularly attended meetings of the East German security service, the “Stasi.” Putin was often photographed by Stasi agents. As a case officer, you must be able to manipulate people. You have to understand both people's weaknesses and their strengths. And to that is added the fact that he was a judo champion. You try to feel even if your opponent is physically stronger than you, what are his other weaknesses?

How can you distract them? So I think if you put those two things together, he's probably been pretty good at manipulating people, making them feel like they're very important, and appealing to his own vanity. Stasi officer Matthias Warnig was also active in Dresden. He had previously spied in the West. At that time he had a close colleague in Berlin. I was in Moscow. And he had access to the Stasi files and discovered that Warnig had indeed been with the Stasi. We interviewed people who knew them both and were able to locate them in Dresden in the late 80s and said that they were working together.

What we were able to verify was that the KGB was actually trying to recruit Stasi agents in Dresden. A Stasi ID became part of Putin's disguise, and by 1989 he was looking beyond the preservation of communism. It was very, very important in establishing the business careers of many different people and probably also allowed the KGB to preserve much of its network. He had met Stasi chief Erich Mielke just a year earlier. Putin represented a powerful state that kept East Germany afloat with its cheap oil and gas. Natural gas was closely related to the quality of life, to warmth, to the provision of services that allowed schools and hospitals to operate.

And I used the word "glue." The cheap energy that the Soviet Union was providing to its Eastern European satellites could be described as basically a subsidy to keep their economies in business.march and keep them firmly in the Soviet orbit. Back then, Russia used oil and gas as a disciplinary measure within the Warsaw Pact whenever there was a conflict. I'm thinking about the uprisings in Hungary and '68 in Czechoslovakia. Moscow sent tanks to Czechoslovakia and supplied less oil and gas. Using oil and gas dependencies as a political weapon was normal under the Warsaw Pact. They would offer very favorable oil and gas contracts and in return, of course, expected loyalty to Soviet interests.

The exploitation of these dependencies in foreign and security policy has a long precedent. In 1989, East Germany was on the brink of collapse. But the Soviet Union continued to demand high prices for oil and gas, which the country could barely afford. It sank even deeper into the crisis. The Soviets received all that money from the Europeans. And they were seeing what the real price of energy was in Europe. And they thought: Well, our economy is not doing very well. Why are we giving away our energy to these people? Agents like Vladimir Putin and Matthias Warnig had to adapt.

The system they worked under was coming to an end. Warnig landed on his feet moments after the Berlin Wall collapsed. It is fascinating, for example, how quickly Warnig was hired by Dresdner Bank. I mean they identified him very, very early as someone who would be extremely useful in developing his business in Eastern Europe and Russia. Former agent Vladimir Putin repositioned himself as the statue of the KGB founder was torn down in Moscow. Putin has described very well in interviews how he returned from Dresden and did not know what to do and worked as a taxi driver on the streets of St.

Petersburg. He eventually landed in the St. Petersburg mayor's office with Mayor Sobchak. Now, Sobchak was a reformer, but he was also corrupt. So there was a period when Putin was in charge of foreign economic contacts. And I think that's when he started making money. The violence followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 1990s were a terrible time. They were just people trying to survive. Well, the key was protection, what the Russians called Krisha, which is roof. Sometimes "ceiling" can be someone from a criminal organization, sometimes it's someone from the government. In the '90s, that person was often the same.

Warnig, a former Stasi agent, established contacts in St. Petersburg for the Dresdner Bank. Both in local government and in a new company, Gazprom. They needed someone in the government in St. Petersburg who could take care of them and open the doors for them. That's why the Putin-Warnig kind of connection was so interesting, because essentially Putin was Warnigs Krisha, he was the roof of him. Putin became increasingly influential over the years, hosting dignitaries and growing his network. Meanwhile, the remnants of the Soviet Union were bartered. Claims were being raised. It was a kind of time of wild capitalism without restrictions.

It was essentially the Far East. Russian natural resources passed into the hands of a small circle of oligarchs, all kinds of extremely wealthy individuals in very dubious privatization auctions. It was a very, very difficult journey for Western investors, but the potential rewards were so great that they simply stayed in the game. While the Russian people scoured empty supermarkets in search of food and lived through freezing winters, international investors contacted cheap Russian companies, especially those in raw materials. An object of speculation was the former Ministry of Gas, renamed Gazprom in 1989 and a corporation since 1992. Gazprom was Russia's most undervalued company at the time.

The reason it was so cheap was that everyone assumed they were robbing the company of every last cubic meter of gas. Many assets were being diverted and given to friends and family of senior managers. This did not deter German companies. One of Gazprom's largest shareholders outside the Russian government was Ruhrgas. The German company was already selling Siberian natural gas in Germany during the Soviet era. But other investors criticized conditions at Gazprom. Every year we put forward a candidate for the Gazprom board of directors, who was one of our own, whose job would be to expose corruption.

They sat on the board of directors, of course they did not vote for our candidate and they did not say a word. They wanted their gas to flow. And they were not at all willing to say a word about criminality. Ruhrgas dominated the European market thanks to Siberian gas. This did not sit well with BASF, its largest customer. BASF was basically blackmailed in 1993 by Ruhrgas, with prices so high that we saw our Ludwigshafen complex at risk. We decided we needed an alternative. We created a joint venture with Gazprom to build the necessary infrastructure in Germany. We built a large network alongside the existing one, including a large storage facility, the largest in Germany.

It was a big problem. It was eventually co-financed by Gazprom. Helmut Kohl's German government favored such projects, in part because they shored up embattled Russian President Boris Yeltsin. The idea of ​​a partnership with a Russia that had made German reunification possible was at the center of German foreign policy, whether left, right or center. And for large periods of the 1990s, there was nothing wrong with that. The other objective was not to leave Russia behind as a kind of failed state. We didn't want a nuclear power to explode on its own on some other world. Kohl forgave the debts of Yeltsin's Russia and natural gas flowed.

Putin noticed. Putin soon came to the conclusion that Russia's greatness was based on its extraordinary oil and gas wealth and that it needed to be strategically deployed to enhance Russia's great power status. Putin wrote a doctoral thesis in 1997 on energy dependence and how it could be instrumentalized in foreign policy. From the beginning he developed a strong personal interest in the subject. I myself had conversations with officials of the German secret services, who had also read it. We talked about what it really meant. If German intelligence knew it, the Chancellery knew it too. The internal political trends were relatively clear: greater state control of the energy industry, managed directly by the Kremlin.

This policy has its roots thousands of kilometers away, in the Bovanenkovo ​​gas field in western Siberia. An invaluable resource. Reindeer herder Majko Seroetto has been guiding his herd across the tundra for 25 years, like generations of Nenets before him. But since the development of the gas field, Gazprom's infrastructure has made life difficult for these indigenous people. Majko's herd moves towards the Kara Sea in the north. That's how it's always been. But the closer they get to the gas field, the more thoughtful these tundra nomads become. Look at the roads. That's a dead end. They also built a railroad.

Soon we will have no land left. And what happens if they close this crossing too? We won't be able to get to the other side. We'll have to spend the summer somewhere around here. We've had three bad years in a row. The snow cover was too thick. The reindeer were so weakened that half of them died. They extract a lot of gas and sell it abroad for a lot of money. What about us? The fate of the Nenets has always been a secondary issue for Gazprom, while in 2000 a single man achieved a level of power that no one expected.

Vladimir Putin became president of Russia in the first year of the new millennium. He had already been prime minister and director of the secret service, the FSB. He had connections all over the state. There were important things that Putin had to do. One was to solidify the power the Russian government had over these industries. And it was not just in natural gas and oil, but in all areas. Putin did everything possible to put his cronies in these companies. Putin also took power economically: company by company, position by position. Then you really saw the

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of the "Siloviki", the strongmen, the security services guys who then began to occupy key positions in Putin's administration.

Putin also set his sights on Gazprom, at that time still a huge and unmanageable company. At the annual general meeting, Putin entered the fray and fired Rem Wjachirew, who was the CEO of Gazprom, which he was robbing along with six or seven of his compatriots. And he replaced him with a new guy whose job wasn't to steal. His name was Alexey Miller. He was a guy Putin knew from St. Petersburg. I remember saying to someone at Gazprom, a little irritated: Who is this guy? What does he know about anything? God, are these the only ones who can run Gazprom, the residents of St.

Petersburg? And the answer was: No. These are the only people Putin trusts. But Alexei Miller was not the real boss of Gazprom. Of course not. He couldn't decide alone. He could decide on Gazprom, but he still had to be voted on. And that's why some contracts took longer. We are talking about a state company. Gazprom followed Putin's orders and bought a critical television station, NTV, and put it in order. We ask everyone, both NTV journalists and all those who incite them, to stop erecting barricades. Critical journalists were fired and protests ignored. I wonder how our people could elect a president like that.

It is awful. Gazprom still owns its own flashy stations 20 years later. A dominant force in Russian media. A dedicated line runs from the main station directly to the Kremlin. And Putin, through Gazprom, also controls private radio stations such as "Echo of Moscow." When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, he wanted to take control of independent media. He started with television, of course. But also one of our majority shareholders, Vladimir Gussinsky, had his shares confiscated to obtain a loan from Gazprom. That's why I always say that Miller is not our shareholder, but Putin. Gazprom is not our shareholder, but the presidential administration.

The station was banned in March 2022. Just over twenty years earlier, Vladimir Putin had shown a very different face on a visit to Berlin. Many German politicians saw him as a symbol of hope. Today we must declare firmly and definitively: the Cold War is over. Objective problems aside, behind everything beats the strong and living heart of Russia, which is open to full cooperation and partnership. I apreciate it. When I saw the response to that speech back then, I thought it was a little naive how people were so uncritical of a man who had been in the KGB for years.

Putin received the unconditional support of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. This supposed opportunity for democratization really did not exist. But that didn't change the fact that Russia was the second most powerful nuclear power on the planet, then and now. Whether you like it or not, you have to live with Russia. My attitude at the time was that we had to try to integrate them somehow internationally. But there was no need to have any illusions about Vladimir Putin's character. In Russia, Putin was having the first offices and homes of oligarchs searched. A new power struggle was emerging.

It was very humiliating for Putin and all the KGB guys to see a bunch of nobodies, in their minds, people who were not part of the system, become so spectacularly rich. All of these KGB guys were basically getting, you know, $50,000 a year from these oligarchs to go and arrest, you know, enemies, and to prepare false criminal cases against business competitors, so they had been reduced to paid servants of the oligarchs. Putin summoned the oligarchs in 2003 and questioned them live on television. One was pointed out. That frustration and bitterness manifested itself very, very strongly in the campaign against Khodorkovsky, and it was very crystallized.

Because you saw that the strong men in the Kremlin and the government really target someone who for them symbolized this oligarch class. Someone who had emerged practically from nowhere to amass astonishing wealth and take over one of the largest oil companies in the country. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was then director of the Yukos oil company, the second largest in the market behind Gazprom. Khodorkovsky was considered a critic of Putin with suspicions of state corruption. Putin's reaction was to arrest Khodorkovsky. Yukos was accused of tax evasion. You could see in the kind of campaign to destroy Khodorkovsky that there was a kind of revenge for all the humiliations they had suffered with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Khodorkovsky was publicly tried. At that time we were following this process very closely, because it was actually the first major attack by Putin's Kremlin on private business. He was sentenced in May 2005 to nine years in prison. Yukos was seized and auctioned for less than its value. Putin's associates took over the oil company. An expropriation in all but name. With expropriation, you have to ask: How did certain people get their hands on these resources in the first place? You could say that maybeThey had something that didn't belong to them at all. Khodorkovsky was taken to a Siberian prison camp in far eastern Russia, near the border with China.

Criticism from abroad fell on deaf ears. And German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder chose a side. These reforms, ladies and gentlemen, have put Russia on the path to stable economic growth. There is not the slightest reason to engage in debates that could shake that trust based on this or that event. German energy companies were in difficult negotiations with Russia in 2004 over access to its gas reserves just as Putin was desperate to build a gas pipeline to Germany. So Western technology and partnerships were very important in bringing Russia to the point where it once again became a true energy superpower.

Putin needed technical help from Germany. Russia's pipeline network was in poor condition. They had discovered huge fields in places like western Siberia, but they couldn't develop them because they didn't have the capital. But the German chemical company BASF could do it. In 1997, we had already converted the first power plant from oil to natural gas, because the Kyoto Protocol pointed very clearly towards the reduction of CO2. In Kyoto, Japan, the international community reached its first binding agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We approve this text, that's how it is! And gas has an advantage. With gas, a combined heat and power plant can be operated.

In other words, you can exploit the resource much, much better compared to pure burning oil or coal. Putin was directly involved in the negotiations between Russia and BASF, each side needed the other. He was always very well prepared for meetings. Some enter into conversations without preparing. I never saw that with Putin. Many Western executives who dealt with Putin felt that they were dealing not only with the president of Russia, but also with the CEO of Russian Energy because of their familiarity with him, their detailed knowledge of him, and his interest and focus on energy. So he's, I mean, he's an energetic guy as well as a political guy.

In fact, I have met Putin 16 times. And what impressed me in most of those meetings was his knowledge of all the statistics. You don't have to go to any of his assistants and ask them. So he really loves the energy. This guy knows about energy in a way that the leaders of most countries have no idea. He was more the CEO of Gazprom than the president. Putin was driven by one thing above all else. We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Paris Club, and especially with our German partners, on the early repayment of part of this debt to the Paris Club.

Was it the German? Was the Government present in the negotiations with Gazprom and Moscow? No. Representatives of the German government were not there. In reality, it was negotiated between Gazprom, BASF and the other partners. It also took quite a while. But Matthias Warnig, the former Stasi agent working for Dresdner Bank, was always there. These were former members of the GRU and, on the German side, former members of the Stasi. And that seemed very strange and very suspicious to me. He confirmed us in our negative instinct about this. Andriy Kobolyev, head of the Ukrainian oil and gas company, knew Gazprom better than anyone.

I was born in the U.S.S.R. and it was clear to me that a company of such importance can never be a simple company. This is part of the state. I was part of a Naftogaz delegation that went to Moscow to negotiate a new gas transit contract. The person hosting us was a middle manager at Gazprom, who, after taking a couple of drinks from Wodka, revealed himself to be a former special agent of the Soviet Intelligence Service. He was talking to himself, like: Andrei. You have to be very careful. Most people here are not businessmen or gas people.

These people were taught and developed how to spy and steal data. If you talk to high-level Russian officials, from the very top, they will tell you that there is no such thing as a former KGB member. The British news magazine The Economist wrote in 2005 that Putin had two means at his disposal to restore Russia's former influence: nuclear weapons and gas. I think those are still the two main levers that Putin has. He is quite astute and realized that gas is one of his two main tools of coercion, influence and influence. Richard Anderson, then a NATO analyst, wrote: Realistically, without serious concerted efforts by EU states, Russia will have the upper hand in this relationship.

Simply put, demand will remain constant, almost regardless of price. If they have to choose between a cold, dark house or paying exorbitant prices, Europeans will do the latter. Construction of the Baltic Sea gas pipeline began at the end of 2005. The project was eventually named "Nord Stream." 'The Nord Stream One project is a big problem, there is no doubt about it. I don't regret it at all either. It was the right thing to do. For BASF, and it was the right thing for Europe. Where possible, we should store gas from Western Siberia for Europe. Alexei Miller introduced Gerhard Schroeder as the new head of Nordstream's shareholder committee on a cold December day.

Chancellery. Did you know he would do it? No, i did not know. I called Angela Merkel directly and told her that Schröder had accepted the job. What did she say? I will not comment further on this. Angela Merkel became chancellor in 2005. Her predecessor's appointment by a Russian-controlled company raised eyebrows. When she accepted that position, I think there was considerable surp

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in the United States because, and in other countries, because it was really very unseemly for a chancellor who had negotiated the agreement when he was defeated in an election. immediately accept a job and make very good use of it.

So I think that was certainly received very negatively in the United States and, you know, there was a lot of suspicion about it. The sentiment in Germany was similar. Of course it was something I would have preferred to resolve differently. The more political a situation is, the more conflicts arise. And I did not want that. I don't think it is right to have a leading role in Gazprom when a former Stasi commander is the chairman of the council. In Germany's own interest, Gerhard Schröder has taken over the supervision of a project that is in our own interest in energy terms.

Schröder did not become a Gazprom lobbyist on his own: his appointment was approved. He should be someone who can represent European economic interests well, but also has a rational approach towards the majority shareholder. At that time, Schröder embodied both elements. Even the new chancellor, who was colder towards Putin in public, did not distance herself from Schröder's new position. I think Angela Merkel actively supported and supported it. I don't remember Merkel ever speaking out against it. Quite the opposite. As I remember, she frequently used the channels that passed through Gerhard Schröder. I think she also provides a sense that these important people are important in a country, so it must be something important what they are doing on behalf of Russia.

Therefore, it works to neutralize any concerns citizens may have. And it also seems that they are bringing together this very prestigious group to do their business. So, once again, it's not just Mr. Schroeder who has gotten caught up in this, although he has become an example of exactly what this is like. There was no opposition from German conservatives on this issue. Why not? Because that's how the entire German economy wanted it, and especially the energy industry. There were many supporters, not only Schroeder's Social Democrats. I don't remember any major voice saying it was a bad idea.

In Ukraine we clearly realized that Nord Stream 1 from the beginning was a project intended to allow the Russians to play hardball against us. This is Uzhhorod, in Ukraine. One of the most important gas hubs in Europe. In Putin's view, these pipelines were not something Ukraine had built. It was something that the Soviet Union had built. It drove Russia crazy that Ukraine controlled these pipelines, which was how their gas moved west. Russia at one point attempted to take control of the gas transit system passing through Ukraine, but Ukraine resisted. And when that failed, they basically decided that the only solution to this situation was to surround Ukraine.

I mean, it was a very clear and concerted strategy, rational from Russia's point of view, to build pipelines that would reduce its dependence and ultimately eliminate its dependence on Ukraine, something that Russia really considered, or at least Putin and the people around Putin did not consider. as a legitimate state. The gas pipelines pass through Poland or Ukraine. Since 1970 a huge network has developed. The gas pipeline is not just a gas pipeline. Together they have the capacity to transport more gas than Russia produces for the European market. The new gas pipeline appears to have been designed to take Ukraine and Poland out of the picture as transit countries while guaranteeing gas supplies from Germany.

The sole purpose of Nord Stream was to be able to put pressure on Central and Eastern Europe. There is not a single Ukrainian, who is not an ally of Russia, who thinks that Nord Stream is anything more than a catastrophic and thinly disguised attempt to bypass Ukraine. Two weeks after construction of Nord Stream began... They have sought this conflict from the beginning. Its policy has always been to divert gas illicitly or, to put it more simply, to steal it from European consumers. I hereby order the initiation of the process to limit gas supplies to Ukraine. The flow of gas to Ukraine and Europe stopped.

The 2006 conflict was very, very important as a starting point. The consequences of a relatively brief cut in Russian gas supplies were much greater than anyone expected. Did we never think this could happen? Look, it has happened. An emergency EU meeting was called. We should discuss what has happened during those 24 hours. It happened for the first time in more than 40 years of constant and reliable supply of Russian gas. By turning off the gas, Putin was continuing a Soviet tradition. In 1991, even former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, hailed as a reformist, had used gas as a weapon against states attempting to leave the Soviet Union. "At that time, the former Soviet ambassador to Germany, Valentin Falin, developed the so-called Falin Doctrine.

In it he named seven instruments that Russia could use to impose its foreign policy in the future. And the most important instrument was the exploitation of dependencies In the early 1990s, when there was the whole question of how to divide the Black Sea Fleet located in Crimea, there were very heated discussions about what was going to happen with this fleet, how Russia was going to be divided with Ukraine. a gas boycott. If this limit is applied, we will surely be forced to reduce energy generation. The situation is perfect for that kind of pressure to be exerted.

Certainly then they were using energy as a weapon. Ukraine's natural gas debt to Russia in exchange for different percentages of that Black Sea fleet. Mission accomplished. A 2006 publication by a Swedish colleague, Larsson, dates back to the 1990s. saying that in more than 50 cases, Russia had exploited exactly these types of energy dependencies for foreign policy purposes, politically blackmailing other states. That's what many Europeans have really missed. They simply did not want to accept the harsh reality that they are facing a new way for Russia to impact the European Union and the Western world.