RUSSIA’S Energy Minister has announced that the Nord Stream 2 will be ‘replaced’ by an alternative gas pipeline to China, as a consequence of the failure of the strategic project to supply Europe with gas and oil, due to Western sanctions on Moscow over its military operation to de-Nazify the Ukraine.
Alexander Novak made the announcement in an interview with Russian television channel Rossiya-1 on Thursday. He responded with a resounding ‘Yes’ to a question whether Moscow would replace the European Nord Stream 2 with the Asian Force of Siberia 2, amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
On the sidelines of a visit to Uzbekistan earlier in the day, Novak said Russia and China would soon sign agreements on the delivery of ‘50 billion cubic metres of gas’ per year via the future Force of Siberia 2 pipeline in Siberia.
The Russian minister added that the stated volume would almost represent the maximum capacity of Nord Stream 1 – 55 billion cubic metres in total – which has been shut down since earlier this month.
Novak also stressed that Russian gas exports to the European Union ‘will drop by around 50 billion cubic metres’ in 2022. The construction of Force of Siberia 2, which will fuel China’s economy partly via Mongolia, is scheduled to start in 2024.
Such a perspective must drive the capitalist rulers of the EU, US and Britain to distraction, since all their leaders from Boris Johnson onwards have stressed that the past policy of snuggling up to Russian oligarchs and Chinese bureaucrats was a big mistake and only strengthened Russia and China and weakened the western capitalists.
The former ‘love-in’ tactic has been replaced by a massive expenditure to weaken Russia, by arming the Ukrainian army with every possible weapon, stopping short for the moment as far as providing nuclear weapons are concerned.
When this policy led to huge rises in gas and oil and and then wheat, and food prices generally, ushering in a devastating inflationary spiral, both Johnson and Truss were adamant that the UK workers had a duty to accept all of this, because it would weaken Russia and at the least see Putin sacked.
Since then it has been no-holds-barred against Russia and China, with colossal military expenditure to arm and rearm the Ukraine, while workers at home go hungry along with their children.
Russian minister Alexander Novak also said that Gazprom, the operator of the Force of Siberia 1 gas pipeline that has linked the Chaiandina field to northeastern China since the end of 2019, would ‘increase its deliveries’ to reach ‘20 billion cubic metres of gas’ each year.
On September 2, the Russian gas giant Gazprom indefinitely suspended natural gas flows to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, over a technical fault, providing no timeframe for a reopening.
So now western Europe faces freezing, a great victory as far as the Johnson-Truss axis is concerned!
The gas shutdown comes as Europe braces for an upcoming harsh winter.
Since the operation was launched, the United States and its European allies have supplied billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Ukraine and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow, despite Russia’s repeated warnings that it will only prolong the war.
Separately on Thursday, the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti cited Putin as saying that pipeline gas supplies to Pakistan were possible and part of the infrastructure was already in place.
The remarks were made in a meeting between Putin and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.
The issue is clearly that capitalism has had its day and the sooner it is replaced on a world scale with socialism, the better the planet will be.
This is why the timid TUC must be forced to take action at its ‘reorganised’ Congress on Tuesday 18th October. It must act for the British workers and call a general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ Government and socialism. Capitalism has had its day and needs a speedy burial and replacement by world socialism!