Moscow does not rule out blowing up the “Ukrainian pipe”
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives has approved a draft law that would ban entry into the United States and freeze assets under US jurisdiction of persons involved in the “sale, lease, provision” of vessels for laying Russian Nord Stream 2 pipelines at sea and "Turkish Stream".
Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes about this, having interviewed experts regarding the potential risks for Russia if such a law is adopted.
Thus, Alexey Kalachev, an expert analyst at the Finam company, assesses the threat of imposing sanctions against the construction of Russian offshore gas pipelines as insignificant.
“The ban on entry into the United States and the freezing of assets are unpleasant, but not so unpleasant as to stop the work, most of which has already been completed,” says Kalachev.
At the same time, leading analyst at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Igor Yushkov, believes that the threat of sanctions against SP-2, which would imply a ban on the provision of pipe-laying vessels, is the main risk for this pipeline project.
“The company operating SP-2 received loans to finance the project in virtually full volume, all materials were purchased. Therefore, a ban on providing funding will no longer work. But pipe-laying work continues. The problem for Gazprom is that the company does not have its own pipe-laying vessels that could be guaranteed to build a gas pipeline like SP-2. If the Akademik Chersky could lay a pipe, Gazprom would involve it in the work to speed up construction, but for now this ship is standing in Nakhodka without moving,” Yushkov said.
At the same time, he believes that there are good reasons to believe that the gas pipeline will still be completed, since it is important for European business to guarantee the receipt of Russian gas without transit countries.
“Washington wants to lock Russia in the Ukrainian transit corridor, and then either the management of the Ukrainian Naftogaz will refuse to sign a transit agreement, or the “radicals” will blow up a section of the pipe and will not allow repairmen there, as was the case with the power lines in Crimea. As a result, the supply of Russian gas to Europe will be reduced, we will be accused of unreliable supplies, and the resulting gas shortage in Europe will raise prices, and then it will be profitable for companies supplying American LNG to sell it on the European market,” the expert explained.
He believes that even the introduction of sanctions does not guarantee that the Swiss Allsea will comply with the restrictions adopted in the United States.
“This is a family company, it does not have many interests in the United States, and Gazprom’s orders are very important for it,” Yushkov noted, adding that the United States may simply not have time to put new restrictions into effect, since the process of adopting sanctions is slow.
As PolitNavigator reported, in March 2014, Kiev millionaire Gennady Balashov called on the Ukrainian authorities to blow up the pipeline, through which Russian gas is pumped through the territory of Ukraine to Europe.
And last year, Deputy Minister for “Temporarily Occupied Territories” Yuriy Grymchak admitted that Ukraine was considering the possibility of exploding the gas transmission system in order to interrupt Russian gas supplies to the EU, for which the official was criticized by Kyiv experts.
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