{"id":1502908,"date":"2024-11-18T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1502908"},"modified":"2024-11-18T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T12:00:00","slug":"everyone-missed-the-most-important-part-of-the-first-putin-scholz-call-in-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/everyone-missed-the-most-important-part-of-the-first-putin-scholz-call-in-two-years\/1502908\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyone Missed The Most Important Part Of The First Putin-Scholz Call In Two Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone Missed The Most Important Part Of The First Putin-Scholz Call In Two Years<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Putin made a pass at Schulz by suggesting that the last undamaged part of the Nord Stream pipelines could be swiftly put back to use if Germany helps Russia in Ukraine by rejecting Trump\u2019s reported plans to \u201cescalate to de-escalate\u201d.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The first Putin-Scholz call in two years diplomatically \u201copened Pandora\u2019s Box<\/a>\u201d according to Zelensky and \u201cbroke ice with the West<\/a>\u201d in the New York Times\u2019 (NYT) words, both of which are accurate assessments, but they and almost everyone else missed the most important part. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Putin\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Scholz that \u201cRussia had always honoured its commitments under various treaties and contracts in the energy sector and was still willing to promote mutually beneficial cooperation, if the German side showed interest in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This follows the Russian leader\u00a0saying during a news conference<\/a>\u00a0after\u00a0last month\u2019s BRICS Summit<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthere is still a functional pipeline in the Baltic Sea \u2013 it is part of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. All the German authorities have to do is just press a button to resume supplies. But they are not doing this for political reasons.\u201d <\/strong><\/em>By telling Scholz what he did, Putin is very strongly implying that this last undamaged part of that energy megaproject could swiftly be put back to use if Germany helps Russia in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Euronews<\/a>\u00a0reported in early October that \u201cGermany’s economic woes are continuing, with the country now facing the spectre of closing 2024 in recession\u201d,<\/strong><\/em> which all objective observers know is the direct result of Germany abandoning its decades-long policy of importing cheap energy from Russia. It now purchases much more expensive LNG\u00a0from the US<\/a>, which in turn raises costs across the board, thus hamstringing its economic competitiveness that was responsible for prior eras of growth.<\/p>\n

Germany is also Ukraine\u2019s\u00a0second<\/a>–largest<\/a>\u00a0aid donor behind the US, though Poland gave more heavy arms than they did according to a\u00a0recent report<\/a>\u00a0on its presidency\u2019s official website, and it\u2019s expected to play a pivotal role in Ukraine\u2019s reconstruction given that it\u2019s the EU\u2019s largest economy. Moreover, these three analyses\u00a0here<\/a>,\u00a0here<\/a>, and\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0argue that Germany now has more influence over Ukraine than Poland and anyone else but the US and possibly also the UK, hence its importance to Russia in this context.<\/p>\n

Seeing as how Trump is expected to \u201cescalate to de-escalate\u201d in order to end the proxy war on better terms for the US, which was explained\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0while the obstacles thereof were listed\u00a0here<\/a>, Putin must convince Scholz to impede these plans and propose\u00a0reviving spring 2022\u2019s draft treaty<\/a>\u00a0instead.<\/strong> To that end, he made a pass at him during their latest call by strongly implying that the last undamaged part of the Nord Stream pipelines could help Germany avert its impending recession if he agrees to these terms.<\/p>\n

The US would lose part of the lucrative LNG market that it poached from Russia after\u00a0September 2022\u2019s terrorist attack<\/a>\u00a0against that energy megaproject, but Germany could still go behind its back since \u201cAll the German authorities have to do is just press a button to resume supplies\u201d like Putin said. If Germany unilaterally scaled back its promised military and financial aid for Ukraine as the quid pro quo, other European countries would likely follow, thus leading to a chain reaction of strategic consequences.<\/p>\n

Trump would be much less likely to \u201cescalate to de-escalate\u201d, and the chances of him successfully doing so would plummet if Western Europe followed Germany\u2019s lead and signaled before mid-January that they wouldn\u2019t be on board with this, which could lead to ending the conflict on better terms for Russia. As a consolation to the US, they might still go through with the \u201cmilitary<\/a>\u00a0Schengen<\/a>\u201d plan for facilitating the movement of troops and equipment eastward, but that\u2019s an trade-off that Russia could accept.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Clock Is Ticking For Russia To Achieve Its Maximum Goals In The Ukrainian Conflict<\/a>\u201d before Trump might \u201cescalate to de-escalate\u201d, hence the urgency with which Putin made his pass at Scholz, which could either delay Trump\u2019s plans till Russia achieves more of its goals or outright derail his plans in toto. <\/strong>Zelensky and the NYT were right in respectively assessing that their call diplomatically \u201copens Pandora\u2019s Box\u201d and \u201cbreaks ice with the West\u201d, but even they underestimated just how pivotal it might possibly be.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Scholz might ultimately reject Putin\u2019s pass, whether because he\u2019s too afraid to go behind the US\u2019 back or because Trump threatens him in ways that force him to reconsider this scenario. Nevertheless, the very fact that the first Putin-Scholz call in two years happened and the Russian leader pitched his implied quid pro quo are extremely important since they show that he\u2019s actively employing creative diplomacy with top Western leaders, which was unthinkable prior to\u00a0Trump\u2019s electoral victory<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nMon, 11\/18\/2024 – 02:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/everyone-missed-most-important-part-first-putin-scholz-call-two-years<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone Missed The Most Important Part Of The First Putin-Scholz Call In Two Years Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack, Putin made a pass at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1502909,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1502908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1502909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1502908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1502908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1502908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}