German Economy Minister Robert Habeck is asking the Canadian government to return the Nord Stream 1 turbine to Russia. Canada is withholding it under sanctions. If she were to hand her over to Russia, she would violate the sanctions. Berlin nevertheless invites it to do so, because it fears the collapse of its economy due to the lack of Russian gas, which threatens precisely because of the missing turbine.
Habeck is trying to convince Canada that if they return the turbine to Russia, The Kremlin will lose a key pretext. According to Berlin, the 60 percent reduction in gas flow through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which has been ongoing since mid-June, is politically motivated. According to a number of experts, if Russia really wanted to, it could supply gas to Germany by a route other than the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline. Alternatively, it could use other, backup turbines.
The Kremlin states that it cannot fully send gas through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline precisely because of the aforementioned missing turbine. So, if Russia had the given turbine, it would no longer be able to make excuses for anything, Berlin thinks. And with that, they are also trying to convince Canada and the Western public. Habeck is literally asking Canada and the Western public for understanding if Ottawa should now violate the sanctions at his insistence. Because if the turbine is still in Canadian hands, the Kremlin will still have an excuse. “Really effective sanctions are only those that harm Russia more than our economy,” appeals Habeck.
The Russian economy will decline by only 3.5 percent this year, less than the Czechia in 2009 or 2020
The decline of the Russian economy this year will be unexpectedly shallow, forecast the largest American banks such as JP Morgan and Citigroup. The first named, the largest US bank, is now counting on a decline in the Russian economy of only 3.5 percent. This would be a dramatically weaker decline than the one the Russian economy faced in 2008 and 2009, at the time of the global financial crisis, or in 2020, when the covid pandemic broke out.
Without a full resumption of Russian gas supplies, the onset of gas rationing in the EU is very likely this winter, Oxford Economics research institute says in its new analysis. According to him, the worst affected economies in such a case would be, in addition to German, also Italian, Hungarian and Czech.
The mentioned turbine was manufactured in Canada by the German company Siemens Energy. Russia sent it to Montreal, Canada for repair, but the Canadian government is still holding it. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attributes the detention to sanctions on the Russian oil and gas industry that Ottawa is applying in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dalibor Martínek: What will happen when Putin turns off the gas? We kiss the ring to the Germans
Follow German Economy Minister Robert Habeck. He became a hero similar to the legendary Jean-Paul Belmond. He’s here for a while, then there again, putting out one trouble after another. So, it actually extinguishes a single, but key problem. Gas. In Arabia, he negotiated liquefied gas contracts that would replace the Russian one. At the beginning of March, he agreed to build a terminal in Brunsbüttel, North Germany, near Hamburg.
The Russian economy is collapsing. Despite what Putin claims
If the fact that the world’s largest country by area has not paid its foreign debt for the first time since the Bolshevik Revolution is not enough as proof of the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy, the report on Russia’s socio-economic situation leaves no one in doubt. The Russian economy is gradually collapsing, writes the American weekly Newsweek.
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