The German tabloid Bild reported, citing its sources in the German government, that in the winter of 2022, Russia planned, through Gazprom structures, to leave millions of Germans without heat. They were able to prevent this thanks to two managers of subsidiaries of a Russian company in Germany.
“On the 39th day of the invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin was preparing the largest energy attack on Germany,” Bild reported, citing another newspaper, Handelsblatt. According to sources, Germany avoided a deep energy crisis thanks to the quick actions of the government, which decided to nationalize assets owned by Gazprom in Germany.
To this end, on April 4, 2022, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced that a subsidiary of the Russian Gazprom, called Gazprom Germania, would come under full state control.
The list of company assets at that time was very voluminous. It received about 1 billion euros in profit per year, and its structures employed about 1,500 employees. Gazprom Germania was part of Germany’s critical infrastructure, Bild claims.
However, immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Gazprom Germania began urgently transferring its assets to foreign shell companies. Two company managers reported this to the government on April 1.
It turned out that already at the beginning of April the company, as confirmed by BILD sources, was preparing to cut off supplies to all major customers in Germany.
“These include 250 municipal enterprises that provided heat and hot water to millions of Germans, about 700 gas power plants, as well as 250 industrial companies, including chemical and steel giants,” the publication reported.
“Millions of citizens would be sitting in cold apartments. Due to the cold, offices and shops could not open. Millions of employees would not be able to go to work because companies would be cut off from gas and heat,” Gerd Landsberg, head of the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, told BILD.
Russia has not yet commented on this information.
Telegraf previously wrote that experts predicted that the price of Russian pipeline gas supplied to China will decline in the coming years. And despite the fact that Russia has already supplied gas to China at a price almost two times lower than what it sells to the EU.
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