Posted on 04/21/2015 9:56:47 AM PDT by tcrlaf
It appears that Herr Schaeuble will be left in the cold as following comments from the Greek energy minister that a deal is coming soon:
-RUSSIA MAY SIGN GAS LINK ACCORD W/GREECE TODAY: ROSSIYA 24
According to Gazprom's CEO comments on Greek TV, following his meeting with Greek PM Tsipras, Russia will guarantee 47BCM/YR of gas via Greece with the link to be built by a Russian-European group at a cost of around E2 billion.
SNIP
As a reminder, Russia is not acting out of the kindness of his heart, but merely engaging in another calculated move, one which kills two birds with one stone:
Following the death of the South Stream, whereby the EU pressured Bulgaria to refuse passage of the Russian gas pipeline to Europe, Russia needed an alternative route of bypassing Ukraine entirely, something which should happen over the next 3 years.
With Hungary and Serbia all eager to transit Russian gas to the Austrian central European gas hub, Greece was the missing link for a landline transit. With this agreement, Russia gets the green light to extend the Blue Stream all the way to Austria and preserve its dominance over the European energy market while leaving Ukraine in a completely bargaining vacuum.
Perhaps just as importantly, Russia will use energy as the generous benefactor riding to Greece's salvation, in turn even further antagonizing the Eurozone and further cementing favorable public opinion.
In this way, Russia has just won a critical ally for the very low price of just E5 billion, without even having to restructure the entire Greek balance sheet should Greece have exited the euro and been attracted to the Eurasian Economic Union.
Which means that all future attempts to impose sanctions on Russia by Europe will fail thanks to the Greek veto.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Russia has been looking for a way around Ukraine to supply gas to Europe for quite a while.
But it sounds as if both Russia and China may be willing to give Greece enough to finance the "New Drachma". (China bought 150 million Euros of Greek debt just last week.)
In return for "Certain favors", of course. Like vetoing sanctions.
It seems like a value of Ukraine is going to plummet for both sides soon.
I said at the very beginning that Putin would try to turn Obama’s folly into a win for Russia.
Russia gets the best assets, being Crimea and the Southeast, while the EU gets stuck with the broken and insanely corrupt rest of the country, (that the U.S. will soon forget all about), that Russia has been subsidizing to keep afloat for two decades.
Sounds like a happy ending for everybody other than Obama, Victoria Nuland, Soros, and the losers you see marching around in Kiev...
The scandal with hillary's foundation? On one list, the greatest number of large donations were from Kiev oligarchs They bought a destabilizing war so they could control Ukraine's assets? Ouch.
Stuff like that should be treason. What's particularly alarming is that the US Senate has very gernerously funded, armed, and trained the coup government's mercenaries.
How do the countries surrounding western Ukraine feel about the potential of those troops to create mischief in Europe?
One thing that isn't mentioned here is that with Greece, Russia has wonderful access to the Med. It actually makes sense with the Orthodox religion to tie them.
Gosh. Remember how nice it was when we had adults running the country?
I keep watching the White House press conferences expecting to see Josh Earnest come out dressed as a Smurf.
Yep. In fact, all the airlines based in Russia have retired the Ukrainian-built Antonov airliners in favor of the Sukhoi SSJ100 and soon Irkut MS-21 (the SSJ100 have overcome their early teething troubles and may soon make a big push for Western airline sales, especially since the SSJ100 has fuselage cross-section wider than the Embraer E-Jets, the Bombardier CS Series and the Mitsubishi MRJ).
“especially since the SSJ100 has fuselage cross-section wider than the Embraer E-Jets, the Bombardier CS Series and the Mitsubishi MRJ”
Not too mention, they are MUCH cheaper to aquire.
A couple of SSJ100’s (and 90’s) are already flying into the U.S., (Miami, San Antonio, and Houston), by a Mexican airline called Interjet.
They have 35 on order.
The Russians and the Greeks shouldn’t get their hopes up too high yet.
The EU is going to charge Gasprom with violating European antitrust regulations tomorrow. This is in retaliation for Russia cancelling the SouthStream project...again due to EU regulatory meddling.
Why Russia puts up with these homo-fascists in Brussels is anyone’s guess.
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