Tag: Energy supply

In Nord Stream bombings probe, German investigators see Ukraine link, reports say

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BERLIN — German prosecutors have found “traces” of evidence indicating that Ukrainians may have been involved in the explosions that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022, according to German media reports Tuesday.
Investigators identified a boat that was potentially used for transporting a crew of six people, diving equipment and explosives into the Baltic Sea in early September. Charges were then placed on the pipelines, according to a joint investigation by German public broadcasters ARD and SWR as well as the newspaper Die Zeit.
The German reports said that the yacht had been rented from a company based in Poland that is “apparently owned by two Ukrainians.”
However, no clear evidence has been established so far on who ordered the attack, the reports said.
In its first reaction, Ukraine’s government dismissed the reports.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denied the Ukrainian government had any involvement in the pipeline attacks. “Although I enjoy collecting amusing conspiracy theories about the Ukrainian government, I have to say: Ukraine has nothing to do with the Baltic Sea mishap and has no information about ‘pro-Ukraine sabotage groups,’” Podolyak wrote in a tweet.
Three of the four pipes making up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 undersea gas pipelines from Russia to Germany were destroyed by explosions last September. Germany, Sweden and Denmark launched investigations into an incident that was quickly established to be a case of “sabotage.”
The German media reports — which come on top of a New York Times report Tuesday which said that “intelligence suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group” sabotaged the pipelines — stress that there’s no proof that Ukrainian authorities ordered the attack or were involved in it.

Any potential involvement by Kyiv in the attack would risk straining relations between Ukraine and Germany, which is one of the most important suppliers of civilian and military assistance to the country as it fights against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
According to the investigation by German public prosecutors that is cited by the German outlets, the team which placed the explosive charges on the pipelines was comprised of five men — a captain, two divers and two diving assistants — as well as one woman doctor, all of them of unknown nationality and operating with false passports. They left the German port of Rostock on September 6 on the rented boat, the report said.
It added that the yacht was later returned to the owner “in uncleaned condition” and that “on the table in the cabin, the investigators were able to detect traces of explosives.”
But the reports also said that investigators can’t exclude that the potential link to Ukraine was part of a “false flag” operation aiming to pin the blame on Kyiv for the attacks.
Contacted by POLITICO, a spokesperson for the German government referred to ongoing investigations by the German prosecutor general’s office, which declined to comment.
The government spokesperson also said: “a few days ago, Sweden, Denmark and Germany informed the United Nations Security Council that investigations were ongoing and that there was no result yet.”
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova dismissed the reports of Ukrainian involvement in the Nord Stream bombings, saying in a post on the Telegram social media site that they were aimed at distracting attention from earlier, unsubstantiated, reports that the U.S. destroyed the pipelines.
Veronika Melkozerova in Kyiv contributed reporting.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 2, 2023
365 days of war in Ukraine — by the numbers

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Russia’s year-long war in Ukraine has led to thousands of casualties, millions of refugees and billions of dollars in damages to the country’s economy, environment and infrastructure.
At home, Russian President Vladimir Putin is pushing the narrative of a just war against the West and crushing dissenting voices, while his country’s economy feels the bite of sanctions — though their effect has been more nuanced than expected. Yet, despite their proclaimed support for Ukraine, some European countries have been reluctant to cut ties with Moscow.
Across the EU, citizens have been hurt by skyrocketing energy prices, and all the while trade flows with Russia have transformed in a matter of months.
Here are 12 months of war summed up, in figures and charts.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 21, 2023
Russian nuclear fuel: The habit Europe just can’t break

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Europe is on track to kick its addiction to Russian fossil fuels, but can’t seem to replicate that success with nuclear energy a year into the Ukraine war.
The EU’s economic sanctions on Russian coal and oil permanently reshaped trade and left Moscow in a “much diminished position,” according to the International Energy Agency. Coal imports have dropped to zero, and it is illegal for Russian crude to be imported by ship; only four countries still receive it by pipeline.
That’s compared to the bloc getting 54 percent of its hard coal imports and one-quarter of its oil from Russia in 2020.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to turn off the gas taps while the EU turned increasingly to liquefied natural gas deliveries from elsewhere caused the reliance on Moscow to tumble from 40 percent of the bloc’s gas supply before the war to less than 10 percent now.
But nuclear energy has proved a trickier knot for EU countries to untie — for both historical and practical reasons.
As competition in the global nuclear sector atrophied following the Cold War, Soviet-built reactors in the EU remained locked into tailor-made fuel from Russia, leaving Moscow to play an outsized role.
In 2021, Russia’s state-owned atomic giant Rosatom supplied the bloc’s reactors with 20 percent of their natural uranium, handled a quarter of their conversion services and provided a third of their enrichment services, according to the EU’s Euratom Supply Agency (ESA).
That same year, EU countries paid Russia €210 million for raw uranium exports, compared to the €88 billion the bloc paid Moscow for oil.
The value of imports of Russia-related nuclear technology and fuel worldwide rose to more than $1 billion (€940 billion) last year, according to research from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). In the EU, the value of Russia’s nuclear exports fell in some countries like Bulgaria and the Czech Republic but rose in others, including Slovakia, Hungary and Finland, RUSI data shared with POLITICO showed.
“While it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions from what is ultimately a time-limited and incomplete dataset, it does clearly show that there are still dependencies on, and a market for, Russian nuclear fuel,” said Darya Dolzikova, a research fellow at RUSI.
Although uranium from Russia could be replaced by imports from elsewhere within a year — and most nuclear plants have at least one-year extra reserves, according to ESA head Agnieszka Kaźmierczak — countries with Russian-built VVER reactors rely on fuel made by Moscow.
“There are 18 Russian-designed nuclear power plants in [the EU] and all of them would be affected by sanctions,” said Mark Hibbs, a senior fellow at Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. “This remains a deeply divided issue in the European Union.”
That’s why the bloc has struggled over the past year to target Russia’s nuclear industry — despite repeated calls from Ukraine and some EU countries to hit Rosatom for its role in overseeing the occupied Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and possibly supplying equipment to the Russian arms industry.
“The whole question of sanctioning the nuclear sector … was basically killed before there was ever a meaningful discussion,” said a diplomat from one EU country who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The most vocal opponent has been Hungary, one of five countries — along with Slovakia, Bulgaria, Finland and the Czech Republic — to have Russian-built reactors for which there is no alternative fuel so far.
Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have signed contracts with U.S. firm Westinghouse to replace the Russian fuel, according to ESA chief Kaźmierczak, but the process could take “three years” as national regulators also need to analyze and license the new fuel.
The “bigger problem” across the board is enrichment and conversion, she added, due to chronic under-capacity worldwide. It could take “seven to 10 years” to replace Rosatom — and that timeline is conditional on significant investments in the sector.
While Finland last year scrapped a deal to build a Russian-made nuclear plant on the country’s west coast — prompting a lawsuit from Rosatom — others aren’t changing tack.
Slovakia’s new Mochovce-3 Soviet VVER-design reactor came online earlier this month, which Russia will supply with fuel until at least 2026.
Russia’s nuclear energy was not initially included in EU sanctions over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine | Eric Piermont/AFP via Getty Images
Hungary, meanwhile, deepened ties with Moscow by giving the go-ahead to the construction of two more reactors at its Paks plant last summer, underwritten by a €10 billion Russian loan.
“Even if [they] were to come into existence, nuclear sanctions would be filled with exemptions because we are dependent on Russian nuclear fuel,” said a diplomat from a second EU country.
This article has been updated with charts depicting Russia’s nuclear exports.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 21, 2023
China talks ‘peace,’ woos Europe and trashes Biden in Munich

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MUNICH — China is trying to drive a fresh wedge between Europe and the United States as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine trudges past its one-year mark.
Such was the motif of China’s newly promoted foreign policy chief Wang Yi when he broke the news at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that President Xi Jinping would soon present a “peace proposal” to resolve what Beijing calls a conflict — not a war — between Moscow and Kyiv. And he pointedly urged his European audience to get on board and shun the Americans.
In a major speech, Wang appealed specifically to the European leaders gathered in the room.

“We need to think calmly, especially our friends in Europe, about what efforts should be made to stop the warfare; what framework should there be to bring lasting peace to Europe; what role should Europe play to manifest its strategic autonomy,” said Wang, who will continue his Europe tour with a stop in Moscow.
In contrast, Wang launched a vociferous attack on “weak” Washington’s “near-hysterical” reaction to Chinese balloons over U.S. airspace, portraying the country as warmongering.
“Some forces might not want to see peace talks to materialize,” he said, widely interpreted as a reference to the U.S. “They don’t care about the life and death of Ukrainians, [nor] the harms on Europe. They might have strategic goals larger than Ukraine itself. This warfare must not continue.”
Yet at the conference, Europe showed no signs of distancing itself from the U.S. nor pulling back on military support for Ukraine. The once-hesitant German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Europe to give Ukraine even more modern tanks. And French President Emmanuel Macron shot down the idea of immediate peace talks with the Kremlin.
And, predictably, there was widespread skepticism that China’s idea of “peace” will match that of Europe.
“China has not been able to condemn the invasion,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a group of reporters. Beijing’s peace plan, he added, “is quite vague.” Peace, the NATO chief emphasized, is only possible if Russia respects Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Europe watches with caution
Wang’s overtures illustrate the delicate dance China has been trying to pull off since the war began.
Keen to ensure Russia is not weakened in the long run, Beijing has offered Vladimir Putin much-needed diplomatic support, while steering clear of any direct military assistance that would attract Western sanctions against its economic and trade relations with the world.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Wang while in Munich | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
“We will put forward China’s position on the political settlement on the Ukraine crisis, and stay firm on the side of peace and dialogue,” Wang said. “We do not add fuel to the fire, and we are against reaping benefit from this crisis.”
According to Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who met Wang earlier this week, Xi will make his “peace proposal” on the first anniversary of the war, which is Friday.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Wang while in Munich. He said he hoped to have a “frank” conversation with the Beijing envoy.
“We believe that compliance with the principle of territorial integrity is China’s fundamental interest in the international arena,” Kuleba told journalists in Munich. “And that commitment to the observance and protection of this principle is a driving force for China, greater than other arguments offered by Ukraine, the United States, or any other country.”
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is also expected to meet Wang later on Saturday.
Many in Munich were wary of the upcoming Chinese plan.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed China’s effort to use its influence to foster peace but told reporters she had “talked intensively” with Wang during a bilateral meeting on Friday about “what a just peace means: not rewarding the attacker, the aggressor, but standing up for international law and for those who have been attacked.”
“A just peace,” she added, “presupposes that the party that has violated territorial integrity — meaning Russia — withdraws its troops from the occupied country.”
One reason for Europe’s concerns is the Chinese peace plan could undermine an effort at the United Nations to rally support for a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which will be on the U.N.’s General Assembly agenda next week, according to three European officials and diplomats.
Taiwan issue stokes up US-China tension
If China was keen to talk about peace in Ukraine, it’s more reluctant to do so in a case closer to home.
When Wolfgang Ischinger, the veteran German diplomat behind the conference, asked Wang if he could reassure the audience Beijing was not planning an imminent military escalation against Taiwan, the Chinese envoy was non-committal.
Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said “what is happening in Europe today could happen in east Asia tomorrow” | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
“Let me assure the audience that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. It has never been a country and it will never be a country in the future,” Wang said.
The worry over Taiwan resonated in a speech from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said “what is happening in Europe today could happen in east Asia tomorrow.” Reminding the audience of the painful experience of relying on Russia’s energy supply, he said: “We should not make the same mistakes with China and other authoritarian regimes.”
But China’s most forceful attack was reserved for the U.S. Calling its decision to shoot down Chinese and other balloons “absurd” and “near-hysterical,” Wang said: “It does not show the U.S. is strong; on the contrary, it shows it is weak.
Wang also amplified the message in other bilateral meetings, including one with Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. “U.S. bias and ignorance against China has reached a ridiculous level,” he said. “The U.S. … has to stop this kind of absurd nonsense out of domestic political needs.”
It remains unclear if Wang will hold a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken while in Germany, as has been discussed.
Hans von der Burchard and Lili Bayer reported from Munich, and Stuart Lau reported from Brussels.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 16, 2023