It was never gonna get certified after the invasion, which is what I meant with dead in the water.
And Germany and Russia negotiating over opening NS2?
That makes no sense whatsoever.
If Russia wanted to deliver gas it could have just continued with NS1 or one of the other three alternative pipelines that were available.
It would most certainly have been certified without US strong-arm tactics. And why on earth would it want to just continue with NS1 given that it traverses Ukraine? Ukraine extracted rent from NS1, siphoned gas from it, and could (further) sabotage it.
Got any evidence for the first statement? Germany stopped the certification process of NS2 the second Russia invaded Ukraine in February of this year.
The rest is also complete nonsense - NS1 doesn't go anywhere near Ukraine. It's a subsea pipeline in the Baltic sea.
Ukraine borders the Black sea and not the Baltic sea.
Also NS2 is right next to NS1..
Sorry, I misspoke— NS1 doesn’t go through Ukraine. I was alluding to the pipelines that do carry Russian gas through Ukraine, from which it extracts billions of dollars— all the more reason for US/UK/Ukrainian sabotage of Nordstream pipelines. As for Germany not certifying the pipeline, that’s all political theater.
Restarting the NS2 certification process was nowhere to be seen on the horizon, so there is no real point to blow it up from the standpoint of the US (nevermind that actually blowing it up would be insane for the US.. the reality would be diplomatic and soft-power options, of which the US has plenty).
It was dead already.
Also all signs were pointing towards NS1 and NS2 being dead in the water for the future too, since the gas storage was filling up despite no more imports at all from Russia, the new LNG terminals making good progress, existing LNG import terminals running at capacity.
And would still like to see any kind of evidence from you that Germany would have certified NS2 if the US hadn't said anything.
