I won't make this one long or analytical. I am sure that somebody will do that within the next 24 hours. But I will say this: the Ukrainians blackmailed Russia over gas, and that created North Stream and South Stream. The Bulgarians decided to cave in to the Eurobureaucrats and that created today's deal with Turkey. For 63bcm. Which happens to be the maximal output of South Stream. But that is all short term. The long term is this: Russia is creating a unified gas distribution network which will be able to send gas from anywhere in Russia to any part of the Russia border.
[Sidebar: The real market for Russian gas will not be a dying EU economy, but the growing and energy hungry mega-market of China. Russia is also selling China it's top-of-the-line S-400 missiles which is a nightmare come true for the US and Taiwan. And all of this involves huge sums of money, immense projects and a deep strategic alliance for decades into the future.]
As for Turkey, this "faithful" NATO member and US ally, it was more than happy to backstab the EU which had denied it membership for decades. Not only did Turkey sign a deal with Gazprom, it also agreed to have Russia essentially built its entire nuclear industry. Russia and Turkey also agreed to boost trade and tourism. Politics is politics, but business is business. Nothing personal here, but Uncle Sam can go and... well, you know what :-)
As for the clueless Europeans, they appear to be literally speechless. Especially the clueless Bulgarian and Serbian politicians who look like idiots and will have to do a lot of explaining to their own people.
The German economy is hurting because of the interruption of trade with Russia and Merkel is in very hot water. Just like Hollande who has to explain why France is now looking at huge losses over the Mistral debacle.
The way I see it, not only did Russia not lose anything, Russia achieved two crucial things: she now firmly put Turkey into her corner (not a trivial achievement if you look at the issues of the future of Iran and Syria) and she created a situation in which EU sanctions only hurt the EU. How one can present that as a defeat for Russia is beyond me.
As for the bad old USA, they are busy sabotaging their own shale gas industry and undermining Saudi Arabia by keeping the oil prices down. What kind of long-term strategy is that? It is sustainable?
Finally, while the Empire still talks about sanctions, Russia is busy buying gold. Lots of gold.
You might wonder what Kiev is doing. Cutting it's gas consumption in half (leaving a large part of the population without heat or hot water) and stealing the pensions from the people of the Donbass. But Kiev has nothing to worry about, Lithuania promises to help :-)
So you still think Russia is losing this one?
The Saker
My Bulgarian colleagues have always told me that whatever happens, they would certainly implement South Stream, because this corresponds to their national interests. But here, unfortunately, this did not come to pass. If Bulgaria is deprived of the opportunity to act as a sovereign nation, then they should at least demand money from the European Commission to compensate for their lost profits, because direct revenues to Bulgaria’s budget alone would have been no less than 400 million Euros a year. But ultimately, this is also the choice of our Bulgarian partners; it seems they have certain obligations. Still, that’s not our business – it’s our partners’ business.Vladimir Putin
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