Boris Johnson warns the EU: choose between Ukraine and Nord Stream 2
As the EU fears that Russia is preparing an invasion of Ukraine, Boris Johnson is cornering the 27 on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline
Hanna Maliar, Kiev's deputy defense minister, told the Financial Times that Western intelligence speculates a "high probability of destabilization" of Ukraine by Russia as early as this winter, after Moscow amassed more than 90,000 troops al its border.
Construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will carry Russian gas directly across the Baltic Sea to Germany, has been delayed by US sanctions and is strongly opposed by Eastern European countries such as Poland, which believe it is designed to starve the 'Ukraine of transit fees for the shipment of Russian gas.
Ukrainian officials also fear that the alternative gas route to Western Europe could make it easier for Russia to invade the country, where it has supported fighters in the eastern Donbass region since 2014, the same year it annexed Crimea.
Dmytro Kuleba, Foreign Minister of Ukraine, said in an interview with FT : “For us Nord Stream 2 is a question of security. We think that Belarus's use of migrants, the situation around Nord Stream 2, disinformation campaigns, Russia's military build-up are all part of the bigger picture. Russia is involved in all these situations ”.
In a speech at the Guildhall in London on Monday evening, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “When we say that we support Ukraine's sovereignty and integrity it is not because we want to be Russia's adversaries or that we want to somehow strategically encircle or undermine that great country. It is because we have a commitment to democracy and freedom that is now shared across most of the European continent. And when our Polish friends asked for our help to deal with an artificial crisis on their border with Belarus, we were ready to respond ”.
"And we hope – he concluded – that our friends will recognize that a choice will soon arise between supplying more and more Russian hydrocarbons in new gigantic pipelines and defending Ukraine and supporting the cause of peace and stability".
Liz Truss, the British Foreign Minister, also called on the President of Russia Vladimir Putin to intervene in the growing migrant crisis on the border between Belarus and Poland.
The UK accused Belarusian authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko of orchestrating a crisis by channeling thousands of migrants from the Middle East to Belarus's EU borders and encouraging them to illegally enter the bloc.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph , Truss urged "friends from all over Europe" to remain united in opposing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline: "It risks undermining European security, allowing Russia to tighten its grip on those nations that depend on its gas".
Johnson and Truss' comments mark a tightening of tone towards the UK's Nord Stream 2 pipeline project at a time of gas supply crisis that has threatened economic recovery from the pandemic, forcing many energy suppliers to the UK. UK out of business and fueled fears of a growing cost of living crisis.
Eastern European lawmakers blamed Russia's scarce gas supplies this winter for restricting exports to Western Europe in order to push Germany to speed up the pipeline's start-up after the completion of the construction in September.
The UK government has expressed little direct opposition to the pipeline in the past and has argued that the UK is not dependent on Russian gas imports, although it has admitted that it is exposed to the "volatility" of global gas markets. The UK imports gas from the EU, which gets up to 40% of its supplies from Russia.
Speaking after the COP26 deal was watered down in the final minutes of the summit, Johnson said: “I know how frustrating it was – as we were about to agree to phase out coal – to see this commitment weakened. But I tell you this: I have been observing politics for a long time and I know when a critical point is reached ”.
"Language is important, but whether it is about phasing out or phasing out, the day is not far off when it will be politically unacceptable, all over the world, to open a new coal-fired power plant as it is now to get on a plane and light a cigar. ".
(Extract from the foreign press review by Epr Comunicazione)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/boris-johnson-avverte-lue-scegliete-tra-lucraina-e-il-nord-stream-2/ on Sat, 20 Nov 2021 07:05:45 +0000.