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A former spy and a close friend of Vladimir Putin created a restart of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in Russia to Europe with the support of American investors, an unimaginable and unimaginable step that shows the expansion of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow.
The efforts made in a deal, according to several people, were familiar with discussions, from the girls of Matthias Warning’s ideas, a former officer in East Germany, until 2023, managed the parent company Nord Stream 2 to the Kremlin Grazprom.
The people said that the Warning plan included communication with the Trump team through American businessmen, as part of the back of the back channel to mediate at the end of the war in Ukraine while deepening economic relations between the United States and Russia.
Some of the prominent Trump administration personalities are aware of the initiative to bring American investors, according to Washington officials, and see it as part of the batch to rebuild relations with Moscow.
While there are many expressions of attention, one union led by the United States has developed the outline of the post -conversion agreement with GazProm, according to one person who has direct knowledge of the conversations that refused to reveal the identity of potential investors.
Senior European Union officials have become aware of the discussion of Nord Stream 2 in recent weeks. The leaders of many European countries are concerned and discussed, according to many officials who have knowledge of discussions.
One of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines was detonated in the sabotage attacks in September 2022 that destroyed each of the pipelines for its older Nord Stream 1 project.
The people said that this recent plan will give the United States unparalleled on energy supplies to Europe, after the European Union countries moved to end their dependence on Russian gas in the wake of the invasion.
But the obstacles are great. The United States will require the lifting of sanctions against Russia, Russia to agree to resume the sales it made during the war, and Germany to allow gas to flow to any potential buyers in Europe.
“The United States will say,” Well, Russia will now be reliable because Americans who are worthy in the middle of that, “said a former US official, who was aware of some of the deals. He added that American investors will collect” money for nothing. ”
The talks come at a time when the Trump administration is suitable for concluding a peace agreement through bilateral discussions with Russia that excluded Europe and Ukraine, as it can threaten the European continent, which is afraid to threaten the American continent with Moscow. Trump has promised deep economic cooperation with Russia if a peace agreement could be reached.
Putin, the Russian president, talked about the economic advantages that the United States can gain with the Kremlin if there is a settlement in Ukraine, claiming that “many companies” were already in contact with the possible deals.
Nord Stream 2 AG, the Swiss -based parent company in the pipeline, has received exceptional residence on bankruptcy procedures in January at least four months.
According to the transferred court document, the Nord Stream 2 – GAZPROM – has argued that the new Trump administration, as well as the German elections in February 2025, “is supposed to have severe consequences for Nord Stream 2” to justify delay. The application referred to “complex geopolitical affairs” and the sanctions system.
Warning told the Financial Times that “he did not participate in any discussions with any American politicians or business actors,” adding that he “continues in this regard the rules. [as a] The person imposed by the United States. “
Putin’s Dmitry Peskov said he has no information about any talks on the pipeline. Gazprom refused to comment. A lawyer representing Nord Stream 2 did not respond to the Swiss insolvency procedures and the creditors assigned to the Nord Steam 2 for FT requests for comment.
Warning, 69, said that he became an intimate friend of Putin in the nineties after creating an office for the Dresner Bank lender in Saint Petersburg, where Putin chaired the city’s foreign relations committee.
The two became so soon that Putin asked Warnege to put his daughters at the banker’s home in Rodermark when their mother was seriously injured in a car accident.
Putin, who is fluently Germany, taught Warneg’s skiing children in Davos and invited him to his father’s funeral, according to an interview with a former Tassili officer in Die Zeit.
But Warning described Putin’s invasion as a “indescribable mistake” and resigned from the two Kremlin -run -up -run -up -run boards in Ukraine in 2022.
He told Die Zeit that he had made a personal appeal to Putin to finish the invasion for a few months and said that the Russian president was so isolated that “the only person who can still say something to him is me.”
Warnig Nord Stream 2 AG, the Russian -owned company that runs the pipeline, left in 2023, but told Die Zeit that the CEO of Gazprom, Alexisi Miller, has guaranteed coverage of its costs in the hope of providing the remainder.
The American Joe Biden administration and Nord Stream 2 Ag showed in 2022. Biden officials showed great interest in the proposal to buy Nord Stream 2 from Stephen Lynch, an American businessman with a record in Russia.
Other potential investors have advanced since Lynch first expressed his attention. The person who has a direct knowledge of Ghazbrom’s discussions said that his advanced talks were with a different US -led consortium from Lynch.
Lynch refused to comment when contacting him by FT. He has applied for a license from the US Treasury Asset Office to control foreign assets for the Nord Stream proposal. Lynch was previously granted one to provide bids to the former Swiss branch of the Russian lender that was approved in Serbank in 2022.
Trump was frank in his criticism of the pipeline during his first term as president. It has become a symbol of those who blamed Germany – and Europe to expand – to rely on Russian gas and help finance the Moscow military machine.
But some Trump team now sees the pipeline, which runs from the Russian Faburg in the Gulf of Finland to sadness on the Baltic coast in Germany, as a strategic origin that can be used in the Ukrainian peace talks, according to administration officials.
Nord Stream’s complex property structure offers 2 serious obstacles to any investment.
Nord Stream 2 is 100 percent owned by GazProm. But five European energy companies – Shell, UIPER, OMV, Engie and Wintershall – Completely provided about half of the $ 11 billion construction costs through loans. All five European companies were removed from these debts.
In 2022, the German government withdrew the Nord Stream 2 license and has never issued the papers required to operate it.
The ownership of the pipeline can give us an investor’s pipeline to control Russian gas flows to Europe, which is a major market for liquefied natural gas exports in the United States that are shipped across the Atlantic Ocean of Tankers.
But senior former US officials and Western businessmen who have experience in investing in Russia said that Trump and Putin alone will not be enough to get Nord Stream 2.
A former US official said: “I cannot imagine the council of any major American companies saying:” Hey, let’s jump again to the Russian market, “at the present time, and the Russians also know this – they have seen these fluctuations in American policy.”
“Europe still has sanctions in place, and it will cause Germany’s subscription to rehabilitate the Nord Breifts flow. Anything like this is ways.”
Additional reports: Olaf Storbec in Frankfurt, Jimmy Smith, James Fonanilla Khan in New York, Laura Beetle and Courtney Weaver in Berlin, Alex Rogers in Washington, Tabbi Kinder in San Francisco and Malcolm Moore, London
Map drawing by Cleef Jones
