Anastasiia: Hello listeners, welcome to our bonus episode of Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World. I am Anastasiia Lapatina.
Jakub: And I'm Jakub Parusinski. For this week's bonus, we're bringing you an extended version of our interview with Kyiv Independent journalist, Alexander Query.
Anastasiia: Wait, it's “Kerry”? I thought it was Queer-y.
Jakub: Well, I think his name is very good for a journalist. Because journalists do deal with a lot of queries, but I think it's pronounced Query.
Anastasiia: So, Alex, our colleague, him and I talked more about Russia's strategy around resources and dove deeper into how energy diplomacy is shaping Europe.
Jakub: So, difficult gas diplomacy isn't necessarily limited to Ukraine and Russia.
Anastasiia: Right.
Jakub: There's actually a couple of other cases in Europe, including France and Algeria.
Anastasiia: And that's exactly what Alex and I talked about, because I asked him if European countries say no to Russian gas, where are they going to find the alternatives? And the alternatives don't look very bright either, because many of these are former colonized countries, with whom the relationship is definitely still very strained to this day.
And this entire post-colonial conversation is fascinating to me, because there is so much reckoning that has to be done.
Jakub: The thing is, every time that there's a gas crisis in Europe, we tend to look to one of the very few sort of large democratic friendly countries to supply our gas, basically Norway.
Anastasiia: Right.
Jakub: The problem is, Norway can't fill the whole world. It just doesn't have enough capacity to sort of deal with and replace all of these other suppliers.
Anastasiia: And also, isn't their gas more expensive? So, that's just not a good long-term solution?
Jakub: Well, their gas is, I think at the market price. It's not really like salmon, that just being from Norway, gives it a premium price.
Anastasiia: Okay. So, on that note, let's hear more from Alex.
Alexander or Alex, hello.
Alexander: Hi.
Anastasiia: Do you want to start with talking about what your role at the Kyiv Independent is and what you've been covering in the last few months and before the war?
Alexander: I began covering business for the Kyiv Independent. But of course, when the full-scale invasion happened, well, like a lot of reporters, I sort of turned into well, covering the war and its effects on the country.
Anastasiia: Yeah, you're French, but of course, you live and work in Ukraine, and you've been here for a while. How did that happen?
Alexander: So, 2016, I just had my journalist diploma and I was following the Euromaidan since 2013. And for me, it was crucial to follow what was happening in Ukraine, because you don't see an efficient revolution happening everywhere.
So, it's sort of, we would say in French, “embrasse” which like ignited my sort of romantic spirit really, the fact that one people can actually write its own history, despite its past, despite its very noisy and violent neighbor. For me, it's something that always fascinated me.
So, I decided to become a war reporter in Ukraine, in 2016, and I stayed.
Anastasiia: Amazing. You've recently interviewed Vitrenko, Yuriy Vitrenko, who is the CEO of Naftogaz. Do you want to briefly chat about that?
Alexander: Yes, it was indeed a quite fascinating interview, because right now, Naftogaz, which is Ukraine's gas monopoly, is facing I would say, a historically grueling winter when it comes to distributing gas to Ukraine and also outside Ukraine.
So, it is an extremely challenging winter for the company, for a company that actually tried to sort of change its skin from a post-Soviet and a Soviet commission, into a properly transparent and western-like, so to speak, company.
So, they're facing a couple of challenge here, which is of course, the priority. So, delivering gas to everyone, despite the war and despite refineries and despite most of the infrastructure being heavily shelled and basically, being destroyed by Russia, because Russia does that now.
And trying to transform and to follow the reforms that Ukraine is also trying to follow. You also have to take into account that more than 50% of Ukraine's natural resources when it comes to gas are in Eastern Ukraine, at the moment.
So, they are in territories that used to be captured by Russians that have been freshly liberated or are still under Russian control. Naftogaz people are literally working under fire.
And I had the chance, so to speak, to see that, because I recently went in some places which were recently liberated in Kharkiv Oblast, and I literally saw these people of Naftogaz actually working almost in military outfit to actually put in place the pipeline, to give gas back to population that needed the entrance of the winter.
Anastasiia: So, let's move to these almost mysterious explosions that have been happening in the Baltic Sea.
Alexander: How mysterious is it?
Anastasiia: Well, it depends on who you ask really. But of course, on September 26th and 27th, if I'm not mistaken, there were multiple explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. So, what exactly happened?
Alexander: So, Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are two pipelines bringing gas from Russia to Germany. They are crossing a couple of waters including Denmark, including Sweden. And Nord Stream 2 was indeed the big project of Russia to sort of double the amount of gas that was brought to Germany.
So, per year, with Nord Stream 1, we're talking about 55 billion cubic meters. And with Nord Stream, it would've double it. So, 110 billion cubic meters. So, it was supposed to open, but it didn't happen.
Because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Germany reduced its dependency to Russian gas. We're talking 55% of dependency to 26% of dependency.
But the main point is what happened to these pipelines. So, there were three explosions. The three explosions damaged three pipelines; the two pipelines on Nord Stream 1 and one pipeline, on Nord Stream 2. So, the only ones working right now is Nord Stream 2, is one pipeline on Nord Stream 2.
And sort of by coincidence, one might say, Vladimir Putin, recently said, “Oh, wait a minute, I can try and fix it.” Because that's what often happens with Russia; they create a problem and they put themself in the savior situation.
So, coming back to the investigation, Germany opened an investigation, Denmark opened an investigation and Sweden opened an investigation because this happened in their own territorial water.
What's interesting though, is that Germany involved the Navy, Denmark involved the Navy too, but Sweden involved the Counterintelligence.
A lot of countries were quick to actually point out Russia, because again, it does look like one of the many tools of Russia blackmail over gas and over resources. So, the investigation is still ongoing, but there's little doubt about who did it.
Anastasiia: Okay. But for someone who maybe doesn't really understand this context, how does that make sense? It's the pipeline that transports Russian gas to Europe, and Russia damages the pipeline, for what?
Alexander: It makes sense in the context of a false flag operation. It makes sense on the context of, for the Kremlin to blame the West and basically, to also say, “Oh, we have a solution, we can fix it if …” (and that's an important if), “You comply to our terms.”
And that's always the same problem. There was an issue with a Nord Stream 1 over a turbine that didn't work properly, and so, they had to send it back to Canada. There was some sort of diplomatic turmoil between Ukraine and Canada. Even when the turbine came back for Nordstrom 1 to work, actually Russia said, “Oh, we're going to reduce the gas flow by 20%.”
So, it’s not technical problem. It has never been a technical issue. It's just that, Russia invents excuses to sort of asphyxiate and manipulate the market and asphyxiate. And it's extremely important now, because Europe, after the COVID-19 crisis, had to face a spike in energy crisis. Because after the COVID crisis, people began consuming more and more gas.
So, the prices went up, and while the prices went up, Russia reduced its supply. And this decreasing supply of gas while Europe was already facing a spike in prices, is indeed problematic. And actually, the whole point of it is indeed to sow chaos, when it comes to energy.
Anastasiia: And is that working? Did you notice that European leaders are perplexed with how to react to this, with what to do with their gas supplies before winter? What's happening in Europe right now? What's the mood in response to this?
Alexander: To a certain extent, it's working. For example, Germany, they have to sort of ask themselves if they want to reopen nuclear power plants, even though it's a big taboo.
But here's the problem. By doing so, and by sort of pointing out the weaknesses in energy in every European country, Russia is actually showing the fragilities of every energy policy in every European country.
In France, for example, there's a massive issue when it comes to gasoline. There's a massive turmoil over French people not willing to accept that they're going to have to turn their heater down a bit because, well, there's less gas than usual.
I think just overall, they are just pushing on the weak points of every European countries, to sow divisions. Again, this is just one tool of a long-term strategy that Russia has been applying against Europe for a while.
Anastasiia: And are there any other tools?
Alexander: Well, gas is Russia's favorite blackmail tool, because it's actually one of the only resources that Russia has left. Fossil fuels are one of the only resources that Russia has, after the sanctions that the U.S. and Europe actually slammed against Russia.
So, Russia doesn't manufacture anything. They just export natural resources and they play with the supply of it. And that's basically their main tool. Now, how they use it, is a different story.
Anastasiia: Is there a connection between the sabotage, which most people are blaming Russia for, and Turkey's supplies of gas?
Alexander: Well, I believe that's an important and interesting point, because while Germany, Sweden, and Denmark are still struggling to officially point the fingers at Russia, Putin openly offered Erdoğan (Turkey's president) for Turkey to become a gas hub. And basically, to focus all the gas supply through TurkStream.
It's actually quite fascinating that in a last speech of Putin, he focused on TurkStream. He doesn't usually focus on such details, when it comes to, let's say, political speeches. But using literally this pipeline, I think is sort of a red flag.
And it's important because right now, Turkey is having quite an interesting role to play when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
So, right now, the Azovstal defenders are in Turkey. Turkey definitely played a role into their liberation. Turkey played a role in the grain-export deal. Turkey's literally becoming the most important mediator between Russia and the West.
Turkey plays bets on two horses, so to speak. Turkey has an interest of staying into NATO, because it makes it a perfect partner when it comes to NATO. It makes it a perfect partner to Russia.
Geographically, if we come back to the issue of gas, I think it was last year or the year before, Turkey found a massive gas pocket in the Black Sea, which could make it one of the biggest gas player in this part of the world.
So, having control of the Black Sea, having control over gas and actually becoming a hub, that would be quite ironic. Actually, Russia throning, so to speak, Turkey as a major player, after trying to put Germany off the throne, of being the major supplier of Europe, is also a message sent to Europe, being like, “You don't want to comply to what I want to do, then I'm going to give it to Turkey.”
Anastasiia: Broadly. Let's talk about the general situation of Europe and its energy, especially, the winter is coming and everyone is talking about this now. We know that a lot of energy was coming from Russia and that has now decreased. So, how is Europe grappling with this crisis? What's happening?
Alexander: So, right now, the biggest supplier of Europe is Norway. Norway took over and became, well, first, a reliable supplier. What's interesting though is that actually Ukraine spearheaded this sort of change.
Because after 2014, when Ukraine was 70% dependent from gas from Russia, they had to choose another supplier. Vitrenko told me that, he had to negotiate basically who was the other biggest country who had like massive gas pockets in the land it owns — well, it's Norway.
So Equinor, which is a partially nationalized company from Norway, is actually supplying first gas to Ukraine and gas to most of Europe at the moment.
What's interesting, it also changes the attitude of certain countries to other countries. Today, France will have to face its own colonial past and will have to reconcile with Algeria.
Because Algeria is also a massive gas supplier. The problem is that Algeria war happened and basically, France destroyed Algeria, over the will of Algeria to be independent. And a lot of trauma will have to be overcome before these kind of gas deals can be done.
That's why recently there had been these trips from French officials to Algeria, et cetera.
Anastasiia: Of course.
Alexander: It sort of changes the mentalities. There is this, I believe, very interesting Hegelian sort of dynamic, which is the master and the slave. So, basically, the master depends more on the slave, than the slave depends on the master.
Meaning that basically, despite what you can see on the window shop at the end of the day, today, France depends more on Algeria green lighting its gas supply to France. So, France will have to actually face itself as a former empire and will have actually to ask for forgiveness.
Anastasiia: At the very least.
Alexander: At the very least. At the very least. So, it does change those dynamics in Europe. It changes dynamics, not only when it comes to Algeria, but then also when it comes to the south, country that have been overlook when it comes to gas supplying.
Spain has a liquefied natural gas terminal, Poland has a liquified natural gas terminal. But those countries have been overlooked because they don't have natural gas resources.
Since the very beginning of the foundation of Europe, Europe has been sort of spearheaded by this French-German couple. There was always this idea that Europe was built over peace between France and Germany and no more World War II, et cetera.
Today, we see the limit of this couple. We see the limit of this partnership, because who are the only countries in Europe that actually didn't sort of grasp the spirit of the time? France and Germany.
All the others understood that, because they actually understand that times are changing. Spain understood that, Poland understood that, only by the fact of building a liquified natural gas terminal, Spain did.
And what's interesting here is that the dynamic is changing. The power dynamic is changing, because the resource dynamic is changing. It's not about you having resources, it's how you can distribute it.
Anastasiia: So, how does this decrease in the import of Russian energy? How is that going to affect Russia itself?
Alexander: Well, the problem is that Russia tends to artificially maintain its market. When the sanctions, hard sanctions applied to Russia, Russia sort of pushed its own companies to de-register, delist from foreign markets and to come back into the Russian market.
So, Russia is creating its own bubble of rubles. And why do we think, why do we see Russian market is going well, is because Russia is artificially inflating its own market, because it's obliging everybody to pay with ruble, to go through its own market. It's creating some sort of protectionism in a massive scale, but at one point it will explode.
Anastasiia: Yeah.
Alexander: I don't know when, but at one point, this bubble will explode.
Anastasiia: As all bubbles do. So, Alex, you mentioned, in the beginning of the interview, that a lot of Ukraine's resources are located in Donbas. And of course, we know that large parts of the east of the country were occupied, then liberated, and a big part is still occupied. Does that play a role in Russia's calculations? Is it important to the way the war is unfolding?
Alexander: On the long-term, it's important. It would've worked in Russia's calculation, if Putin hadn't been lied to. It would've worked in Russia's calculation, if Russian army had been “greeted” with flowers. It would've worked if Russia’s annexation would've actually worked.
So, it's not the case. Russia doesn't control shit. Russia doesn't control its own army, Russia doesn't control its own soldiers, they can't even control their own planes.
So, at the end of the day, the long-term could and would indeed have been an exploitation of resources. But to exploit those resources, you need structures, you need refineries, you need these technicalities to work.
What struck me, for example, is there was this sort of questions among military experts when Russia began invading Ukraine, who were like, “Why don't they hit rollways?”
Because they think they're going to control the rollways, and because they don't have anyone to fix it. Russia will need to rebuild those refineries. Russia will need to bring in a lot of technical equipment that it doesn't have at the moment.
Anastasiia: Of course.
Jakub: Russia wasn't able to develop a proper gas program since few years already, because of sanctions. And that's why. There is this idea, there is this thing of like, if you cannot have it, I will destroy it.
I think it's something that also applies to this war. It's a very abusive mentality.
Anastasiia: I think it's interesting because in a way, of course, one could say that this war, apart from all of the other motivations in part, was also motivated by trying to control the resources.
But Russia has a lot of resources. Russia is the biggest country on planet earth. And the whole point of why they've been crashing down all of these nationalist movements around it and taking control of these lands, is to control the resources there.
So, another part of it, in my opinion, is just making sure Ukraine doesn't have it, making sure Ukraine isn't economically prosperous, because Russia doesn't need an economically prosperous Ukraine, along its borders.
It's not only the idea of taking those resources for themselves, but also just for the fact of taking them away from us.
Alexander: Yes, yes, I agree. It's literally depriving the right to exist, to its neighbor. The beginning of this war in 2014, was actually depriving the right to exist to a democracy nearby, to a potentially prosperous democracy. Unfortunately, it was expected, it’s actually the continuity in Russia's policy.
Anastasiia: Absolutely.
Alexander: And it’s said how an empire works, when some sort of a — what it considers as a vassal state actually rebels, “Well, let's actually destroy it because we're an empire.” But that's the problem. Right now, the empire is collapsing and the emperor is actually close to naked.
Anastasiia: It's preposterous to me that there are so many researchers or just regular people who are interested in politics, who were shocked when this war began. And of course, I was shocked too, because it's my own country and it's just scary.
But historically speaking, there is nothing shocking about what Russia is doing. They've erased cities off the map before, in other countries around it.
The same thing has happened in Chechnya. They've tried to do a similar thing in Georgia. They've done this in many other countries.
But Ukraine is now the only country that seems to be really pushing back to such a significant scale, which is why everyone is now shocked and paying attention. But Russia has been doing this. It's the same playbook.
Alexander: It's shocking if you read only Russia's playbook. It's shocking if you're a Kremlinologist, as you say, it's shocking if you actually only focused on Russia's history.
But maybe if people actually focused, not only on Ukraine history, but on the history of Dagestan, on the history of Georgia, on the history of actually all the states that Russia erased and tried to erase, and the history that Russia tried to erase as an empire, maybe they wouldn't be that shocked into the reaction that actually unfollows.
So, it's all about where you want to stand and actually what you want to get interested into. So, yeah.
Jakub: Thank you so much for listening to Power Lines. We'll see you next week for our regular episode, where we'll be speaking to Fiona Hill, about the future of Eurasia, and just how destabilizing Russia's invasion has been for its surrounding countries and the global order.
Anastasiia: Power Lines is a partnership between the Kyiv Independent and Message Heard. It was produced by Bea Duncan, Harry Stott, and Talia Augustidis. The executive producer is Sandra Ferrari. The theme music is by Tom Biddle and Alfie Godfrey.