By John Wojcik
While much of the world has long recognized that the US has been fighting a proxy war against Russia by arming Ukraine to the teeth, proof of a new twist in that story emerged recently from no other a source than the savagely pro-business Wall Street Journal.
The Journal reported November 22 that at least one billionaire American investor has his eyes squarely set on buying Nord Stream 2, one of the pipelines built to bring cheap natural gas to Europe from Russia. The company which owns the pipeline is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings in Switzerland, with its assets likely to be put up for auction.
Nord Stream 2, and its predecessor Nord Stream 1, run under the Baltic Sea, connecting Russia and Germany. They were sabotaged in September 2022, blown up in massive explosions that produced the world’s largest natural gas leak and released 478,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere.
While the Russian-owned Nord Stream 1 was rendered completely useless, Nord Stream 2 was only partially damaged and could be made operational again – which is why US fossil fuel companies are eyeing it.
Europe, particularly Germany, had long been meeting a huge chunk of its energy needs by purchasing gas from Russia at affordable prices. The Russian-built pipelines, which cost $23 billion to construct, were supposed to make the deals even more affordable for Europe and more lucrative for Russia, helping to guarantee peace in the region at the same time.
For Ukraine, the pipelines would have meant lower transit fees collected from transporting Russian gas in overland pipelines that passed through its territory. For US energy companies, the commercial success of the Nord Stream pipelines would have meant trouble of a different kind.
Companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell, along with the hundreds of drilling and shipping contractors that work with them, have long sought to massively step up their exports to a Europe starving for gas, but standing in the way was Russia and its state-owned Gazprom company – builder of the pipelines.
Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russian natural gas accounted for over 30 percent of all energy imports into the European Union. Leading EU powers Germany and France got 40 percent of their gas from Russia while some other countries, like the Czech Republic and Romania, used only Russian gas.
In order to dislodge the competition and grab market share, the Western multinationals needed to control the flow of gas from the east. So, when it comes to incentives to permanently separate Russia and Europe, the US energy giants have plenty. The pipelines have thus played a key role in the Ukraine-Russia conflict since long before Russian troops crossed the border in February 2022 and have occupied a central place in keeping the war going since then.
Western sabotage of peace agreements between Ukraine and Russia included promises from President Joe Biden that the US would “bring an end” to Nord Stream, saying in February 2022, “we’ll be able to do it.” That was his answer when Biden was asked how he expected Europeans to join in the war against Russia when the pipelines were delivering their gas from that country.
The Biden promises later materialized when the pipelines were blown up and Nord Stream 2 was seized by Swiss bankruptcy courts. The US absurdly claimed at the time that Russia blew up its own pipeline, but a Wall Street Journal investigation discovered that a team of Ukrainians was behind the sabotage. A general acting under Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered the operation, with the CIA having advance knowledge.
Now, at least one US billionaire, Stephen Lynch, has asked the US to allow him to bid on the sabotaged Nord Stream 2, according to the Wall Street Journal. Lynch previously made a name for himself in the world of high finance previously by buying up Russian assets on the cheap, including a distressed Russian bank that was a victim of US sanctions.
The American billionaire’s argument is that by stealing the Russian pipeline at a bargain basement price, in addition to lining his own pockets, he will be doing a patriotic duty – giving the US leverage in any peace negotiations with Russia aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
Don’t look at Lynch or others like him then as just some greedy billionaires; all he’s really doing is serving the long-term interests of the US while making some money along the way. Never mind that serving those interests have required expansion of NATO, sabotaging peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, supporting a long war between the two countries, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, and siphoning off money from the US people that could have been used to meet human needs instead of war.
What about saving democracy in Ukraine? The Zelenskyy government there has, of course, banned all opposition political parties, with banning of the Communist Party there being only the first. It has shut down all except government-controlled newspapers, banned speeches against the war, outlawed the use of the Russian language spoken by half the population, banned trade unions, and the list goes on.
Forget all that freedom and democracy garbage; Lynch actually tells it like it is. “The bottom line is this: This is a once in a generation opportunity for American and European control over European energy supply for the rest of the fossil fuel era,” Lynch told the Wall Street Journal.
He was a big contributor to the Donald Trump campaign, giving over $300,000 to the president-elect and his affiliated front groups. According to the Journal, Lynch has told many people he “wants to be the richest man in the world you’ve never heard about.” Elon Musk, apparently, had better move over.
A cheap purchase of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline would be a great steal for the US and its fossil fuel billionaires. For now, it enables US companies to conduct the forceful sale of their fracked gas to Europe. Should they achieve their long-term dream of taking over Russia and privatizing all its energy and mineral wealth, they will be in even better shape.
Europe is already paying a heavy price for the pipeline fiasco. Prices of energy in Europe have gone up by almost 50 percent, and the once powerful German economy is on its knees. In addition, the peaceful cooperation between the EU and Russia has been replaced with distrust and a pro-war footing.
As the German economy shrinks, it could get even worse because of the policies of the incoming Trump administration, which threatens all kinds of tariffs that could further damage European economies.
Lynch, in order to bid on the pipeline, would need a license from the Treasury Department, an exemption to US sanctions against Russian companies and assets. If he does not get that license now from the Biden administration, he’s hoping that his record of funding the Trump campaign will help him secure it in January.
Support for the destructive proxy war in Ukraine against Russia extends across both political parties. Biden is rushing additional military aid to the Zelenskyy government in the last months of his administration. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a sycophantic Trump backer, has also said the US should continue and even step up military aid to Ukraine now.
Graham said in late September that Ukraine was the source of some of the world’s most valuable minerals, including titanium and others coveted by big business in the US and other Western countries.
“We can benefit from this mineral wealth,” Graham said brazenly, “so we should be continuing to provide them with military support.” He bragged that at a recent meeting with Zelenskyy he had been assured that if Ukraine wins the war, he would gladly funnel these minerals into the US.
Not a word was said at the meeting about freedom, democracy or the hundreds of thousands killed for those minerals.
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