So now that they have it, what does that mean?
Do they set up the whole thing to be destroyed so it would take years or longer to repair and use that as a threat against Russia attempting to take it back?
And then use that as leverage moving forward?
Is there any way to divert the fuel to be used in Ukraine?
The Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine recently reported that the transit of Russian through the Ukrainian gas transportation system is currently operating as usual.
Huh, so even with Russia having invaded Ukraine, Ukraine is still allowing Russian gas to flow through Ukraine to the EU? Must be in order to not upset the EU countries that are still getting Russian gas piped to them?
Oh that’s interesting. I bet there’s a way to get fuel out from there and you could start collecting it and sending it back.
Check my edit above, weird situation.
Ya, the situation is weird, ukraine has a contract until the end of 2024 of 2025 and they’ve been upholding it so far, but the agreement is with Russia not the EU…
Now that most of the EU has other sources though, maybe it’s time to just shut it off.
Oh sure, the contract is with Russia, but there’s got to be at least one EU state that is still dependent on Russian gas that UA needs continuing support from. Otherwise, it’s a no brainer to just take what Russian gas you can before they shut off the tap.
but there’s got to be at least one EU state that is still dependent on Russian gas
Plenty of them. Altough the things have changed quite quickly at some point pretty much the whole Europe relied on (cheap) Russian gas. EU states have largely switched to other supplies, but I think at least some of France and a ton of smaller non-EU countries still rely on the pipeline so shutting it down would cause a ton of issues across the continent which in turn would harm Ukraine as they’d be the ‘bad guy’ for your Joe Average in Austria (or somewhere else) who would at least pay more for his gas.
Additionally there’s the PR value when Ukraine can say ‘we honor our agreements, no matter what’ but I can’t say how much that plays a part on anything. Plus, I suppose, they collect some rent for the pipeline going trough their country, so keeping it running has financial reasons too.
It’s a pretty complex situation, but as Ukraine could pretty literally just crimp the whole pipeline with an excavator on their own land or pull the gas from the line for their own needs and haven’t done so, it tells to me that it’s more beneficial for them to keep it running.
It is the type of infrastructure Russia can not just bomb or shell. That makes it a good defensive position.
Other then that the pipelines continue to Europe via Ukraine. So shutting it down was easy to do for Ukraine before the war. However Ukraine has no interesst in destroying that pipeline as Ukraine has gas reserves in the regions of Ukraine Russia is currently occupying. Having a pipeline to Europe is usefull to transport that gas as well. So Ukraine does not care that much about blowing it up. Obviously if they do, the Russians have no problem shelling them, so they will not do that.
Btw it currently looks like Ukraine is moving to the Kursk nuclear power plant. That has a similar maybe even worse problem for Russia. Especially since two of the reactors are of the same type, which blew up in Chornobyl. Intresstingly there is a cut power line going from the power plant to Ukraine. Having 3GW of unbombable nuclear would be very nice for Ukraine.
well the man in the picture is clearly turning it off
lol
