This is an announcement that revives fears of a disruption in the supply of hydrocarbons from Russia. The Russian gas giant Gazprom announced Monday July 25 that it would drastically reduce from Wednesday July 27, to 33 million m3 daily, deliveries of Russian gas to Europe via the Nord Stream gas pipeline, arguing the need for maintenance of a turbine.
In addition, the Russian strikes against the Ukrainian port of Odessa do not constitute an obstacle to Ukrainian grain exports and the implementation of an agreement signed under the aegis of the UN, the Kremlin said on Monday. The Russian army bombarded the Ukrainian port of Odessa on Saturday July 23, vital for the Ukrainian grain trade.
The Russian gas giant Gazprom announced Monday that it would drastically reduce from Wednesday, to 33 million m3 daily, deliveries of Russian gas to Europe via the Nord Stream gas pipeline, arguing the need for maintenance of a turbine. “The productive capacity of the Portovaïa compressor station will increase to 33 million m3 on July 27 at 7 a.m.,” Gazprom said on its Telegram account, or about 20% of the pipeline’s capacity against some 40% currently.
Russia had already cut the volume of its deliveries twice in June, saying that the gas pipeline could not function normally without a turbine which was being repaired in Canada and which had not returned to Russia because of the sanctions imposed by the Westerners following the Russian assault on Ukraine. Since then, Germany and Canada have agreed to bring the equipment back to Russia, but the turbine has not yet been delivered.
For Berlin, it is a “pretext” and a “political” decision to influence Westerners in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. “According to our information, there is no technical reason to reduce deliveries,” a spokeswoman for the German economy ministry told AFP on Monday. The German group Siemens Energy, in charge of the maintenance of the turbine, also assured to see “no link between the turbine and the gas reductions which have been implemented or announced”, according to a press release sent to AFP.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had warned him that if his country did not receive the missing turbine, the gas pipeline would operate at 20% of its capacity this week, due to the upcoming maintenance of a second turbine. The Nord Stream gas pipeline, with a capacity according to Gazprom of 167 million m3 daily, links Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. The tube is strategic for gas supplies to Europeans, who are highly dependent on Russian energy resources.
Russian strikes against the Ukrainian port of Odessa are not an obstacle to Ukrainian grain exports and the implementation of an agreement signed under the aegis of the UN, the Kremlin said on Monday. The bombings “target only the military infrastructure. It is not at all related to the infrastructure used for the implementation of the agreement on grain exports”, estimated the spokesman of the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov . “That is why it cannot and should not interfere with the start of the loading process,” he added during his daily telephone briefing to the press.
The Russian army on Saturday bombed the Ukrainian port of Odessa, vital for the Ukrainian grain trade. These strikes came the day after the signing of an agreement involving Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the UN to allow grain exports from Ukraine to reduce the risk of a looming global food crisis. because of the Russian offensive.
The agreement signed Friday, July 22 in Istanbul provides in particular for the establishment of secure corridors to allow the circulation in the Black Sea of ??merchant ships and the export of 20 to 25 million tonnes of cereals blocked in Ukraine. The export of wheat, corn and sunflower from Ukraine was 90% by sea and mainly through Odessa, the main Ukrainian port in the Black Sea, which concentrated 60% of the country’s port activity.
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei traveled to Ukraine on Monday where he met his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky who thanked him for “his support for the policy of sanctions against Russia”. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Alejandro Giammattei closed the Guatemalan embassy in Moscow.
“I am happy that Guatemala is ready to join in the promotion of the initiative for a special tribunal that will try the crimes committed by Russia against the Ukrainian people,” Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters. in Kyiv.
The Central American country exports nickel to Ukraine from which it imports iron and steel. Despite the rupture of diplomatic relations, Guatemala continues to export coffee and bananas to Russia and imports fertilizers, medical equipment and paper.
The National Financial Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation on July 1 targeting the property acquired in France by Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin, AFP learned on Monday from a source familiar with the matter, confirming information from the Parisian.
This investigation was entrusted to the Central Office for the Suppression of Serious Financial Crime (OCRGDF). It comes after the anti-corruption NGO Transparency International (TIF) filed a complaint at the end of May in Paris for in particular acts of “laundering” targeting possible ill-gotten gains in France by “businessmen and senior officials close to Vladimir Cheese fries”.
The complaint against X of the NGO aims, in addition to money laundering, the non-justification of resources, TIF thus explaining “to denounce the system of capture of the Russian State and national wealth by” relatives of Vladimir Putin. According to the NGO, which does not give the names of the people targeted to “avoid reprisals”, the system developed “extends its ramifications to France, in the real estate sector in particular, due to a lack of vigilance intermediaries”.