Will they, won't they invade? Gas at the centre of the Russia Ukraine conflict

The Ukraine crisis is basically about energy and how it continues to shape geopolitics. In spite of all the hype about green energy replacing fossil fuels, the world is still quite far from sustainable technology and infrastructure solutions that can provide inexpensive and reliable power on a massive scale. While these are developed and implemented, and as coal is steadily phased out, natural gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, will become more and more critical as an energy source.

Russia is the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, and currently supplies about 35% of Europe’s consumption. With the commissioning of the gigantic new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that will link Russian gas fields directly with Europe’s largest economy Germany, Western Europe will become even more dependent on Russian gas. At the heart of the sabre-rattling over Ukraine could be ambitions and anxieties about the future of the enduring post-World-War-2 alliance between the US, UK and Western Europe.

Germany needs that gas from Nord Stream 2, and it needs it quickly. In 2021, 13.3% of its energy needs were met by its nuclear plants, but it is committed to shut down all of them by the end of this year. It has invested half a trillion dollars on wind and solar power generation, but last September, faced with unforeseen weather conditions and a shortage of natural gas, saw unprecedented blackouts and rationing. Russia is one of Germany’s largest trade partners; the relationship can only get stronger when gas starts flowing through Nord Stream 2.

The US has been bitterly opposed to the pipeline, since it can significantly increase Russia’s power over the European Union. Vladimir Putin will be able to use Nord Stream 2 for strategic leverage—after all, he controls the supply. The US sees this as a direct threat to its own influence in the region. But Germany has not budged. This is by far the best option it has to stay energy-sufficient.

Also read: What are Europe's options in case of Russian gas disruption?

The vast steppes of Ukraine have always acted as a critical buffer zone between Russia and Europe. Invading armies—from Napoleon Bonaparte’s to Adolf Hitler’s—have had to cross these, and in the process given Russia time and space to plot and prepare its defences. Ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has remained intent on keeping control over Ukraine, mainly through installing puppet governments through sham elections. But since the early 2010s, US-friendly regimes have been in power. In retaliation, in 2014, Putin annexed the Crimean region from Ukraine.

After losing Crimea, Ukraine applied for membership of the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Putin made it clear that NATO would face consequences if it accepted Ukraine as member—there could be no compromise on this, because Russia’s buffer zone would be gone and the NATO military forces and missile systems would be right at Russia’s doorstep. Russia has also repeatedly launched massive cyberattacks on Ukraine (Russia, of course, denies this), crippling its government and financial and social infrastructure. In June 2017, in the biggest cyberattack in history, a malware called NotPetya wiped out the hard disks of an estimated 30% of all computers in Ukraine, including the radiation monitoring systems at the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Also read: WannaCry, NotPetya and more: Mega cybersecurity disasters that world saw in 2017

Historically, Russian pipelines carrying gas to Europe passed through Ukraine. In addition to access to Russian gas, these lines earned Ukraine revenues in the form of carrying charges—essentially rent for the land used. But Nord Stream 1, commissioned in 2010, bypassed Ukraine and instead burrowed under the Baltic Sea, reappearing on land at Greifswald in Germany. Nord Stream 2, targeted to go on-stream by the middle of this year, follows the same route and will double the gas supply through the network to 110 billion cubic metres per year.

Russia seems to have started building up its military presence at the Ukraine border in November 2021. Putin claimed this was a standard practice and he had no wish to invade. But US president Joe Biden went ballistic. UK prime minister Boris Johnson joined in. One of the first statements Biden made was that the US would not allow Nord Stream 2 to go on-stream if Russia invaded Ukraine. He also warned Russia of strict international sanctions.

In their daily press briefings, White House spokespersons have kept predicting that the invasion could begin the day after… or day after tomorrow… any time now. This, while, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has maintained throughout that there is no threat of war. Last Monday, in a televised address to the nation, Zelenskyy said that he had been told by “them” that war would begin on Wednesday and the Western media went wild. His spokesperson had to clarify that Zelenskyy’s remark had been a sarcastic dig at Western media (he is a former comedian), and anyone with the slightest grasp of the Ukrainian language would have known that.

Meanwhile, Russia has claimed that it has begun its withdrawal of troops, but Biden says that Putin is lying and the invasion can occur… any time.

In a sideshow involving India as an innocent bystander, then-German Navy chief Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, on a visit to New Delhi last month, commented that Ukraine can never get back Crimea and Putin “probably” deserved respect. Following a media outrage in Germany, he resigned.

No one has ever been able to predict with any consistent accuracy what Putin would do next. The West sees him as a bully and a thug, but from Putin’s point of view, it is about reinstating Russia as a global power. And Nord Stream 2 and Ukraine are crucial to achieving this ambition.

Also read: War, peace, stalemate? Week ahead may decide Ukraine’s fate

But for Biden and Johnson, the Ukraine crisis could not have come at a better moment. Domestically, both have been having a very tough time. Biden has had a lousy first year as president. His approval ratings are at an all-time low, and a survey in November found that only 46% of Americans thought that he was “mentally fit” for his job. Across the Atlantic, even some legislators from his Conservative Party have been calling for Johnson’s resignation. Whatever Putin’s actual plan may be, it makes total sense for Biden and Johnson to shout every day about an impending world war.

It could be that Putin knows quite well that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine will be enormously costly. Ukraine has the largest standing army in Europe, next only to Russia’s own in the region. Putin could annex Crimea easily because 65% of the Crimean population is Russian and Russia already commanded a huge military base at Sevastopol, which was only technically under the Ukraine administration. He has brutally crushed political opposition in his country, but there may be no support from the general populace for a new war. Also, in the case of an invasion, Germany will be forced to cancel the Nord Stream 2 agreement, which will thwart Russia’s economic and long-term geopolitical objectives.

Putin’s aim is to maintain Ukraine as its buffer zone, with no NATO presence. He will definitely hope to achieve this through scare tactics and not war.

What we are seeing right now is high-level brinkmanship. But if I were a betting person, I would put my money on Putin—one, because his commitment to his purpose is far stronger than that of Biden’s, Johnson’s or other Western leaders’; and two, he does not have a democratic electoral system to answer to.

In the meantime, China quietly continues to build a globally dominant position on rare earth metals like lithium and cobalt, essential for manufacturing “clean energy” batteries, and is setting up mammoth facilities to make semiconductor chips that are already core to most of the machines and devices we use. In 10 years’ time, these batteries and chips will be the fuel that powers the world.

Also read: Separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine declare full military mobilisation