Recently, there have been active discussions about the prospects for launching the remaining line of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and the possibility of restoring the three blown-up lines. In particular, an American investor Stephen Lynch expressed his desire to buy Nord Stream 2. 

In June the German newspaper Die Zeit reported that Stephen Lynch paid a debt of the operator of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline to creditors. The Alternative for Germany party has long been demanding that Nord Stream 2 be put into operation. The party Alternative for Germany demands to bring «Nord Stream-2″ into operation for a long time. However in July the authorities of the European Union released the ban on operations with Nord Stream and Nord Stream-2 gas pipelines.

In the early nineties over 90% of gas export from Russia were carried out by transit through the territory of Ukraine. Gazprom repeatedly tried to agree with the authorities of Ukraine about sharing of the Ukrainian gas transmission system (GTS). It was obvious that the volume of investment into modernization of the Ukrainian GTS is insufficient and sooner or later it will become useless. In 2004 Naftogaz of Ukraine and Gazprom on a parity basis created International Consortium for Managing and Developing Ukraine’s Gas Transmission System. At the end of August, 2004 Russian and Ukrainian Prime Ministers Mikhail Fradkov and Victor Yanukovych signed an agreement about measures for ensuring strategic cooperation in gas industry. It was said in the document that the International consortium will construct a new gas pipeline of Bogorodchana — Uzhhorod about 300 km long. It would allow to expand a bottleneck for transportation through this pipeline of the Ukrainian gas transmission system and to increase export of the Russian gas to Europe. The Russian-Ukrainian consortium had to become the owner of the new site.

The agreement stipulated that Gazprom would guarantee the allocation of additional volumes of natural gas for transportation through this pipeline, in excess of the parameters established by previous intergovernmental agreements in 2005 — 5 billion cubic meters of gas and in 2010 -19 billion cubic meters. It was assumed that if Naftogaz of Ukraine could not maintain its country’s worn-out gas pipeline system, it would eventually have to be transferred to a consortium that would include a major European gas company.

In the autumn of 2004, Ukraine held presidential elections, which were won by Viktor Yanukovych. However supporters of his opponent Viktor Yushchenko declared results of elections forged and arranged mass protests. U.S. authorities actively supported Viktor Yushchenko. As a result of the Orange Revolution, new elections were held, and Viktor Yushchenko won. He began to pursue a demonstratively anti-Russian policy and broke off the agreement on the creation of the International Consortium for the Management and Development of Ukraine’s Gas Transportation System. The Ukrainian GTS continued to decline.

In 1997, the famous American politician Zbigniew Brzezinski published his book The Grand Chessboard. In it he wrote, «Loss of Ukraine was geopolitical important point because of significant restriction of the geostrategic choice of Russia. Even without the Baltic republics and Poland Russia, having retained control over Ukraine, could nevertheless try not to lose the place of the leader in resolutely operating Eurasian empire in which Moscow could subordinate to the will the non Slavic people of the southern and southeast regions of the former Soviet Union. However, without Ukraine, with its 52 million Slavic population, any attempt by Moscow to recreate the Eurasian empire would likely result in Russia being entangled in protracted conflicts with non-Slavic nations that have risen to defend their national and religious interests. Ukraine was extremely important. The increasing tendency of the USA to give a high priority to the American-Ukrainian relations and to help Ukraine to keep the recently found national freedom was considered by many in Moscow — and even «pro-Westerners» — as the policy aimed at the interests, vital for Russia».

In 2011 the American political scientist, the founder and the director of the private prospecting and analytical organization Stratfor which is called the private CIA published the book Next 10 Years (2011-2021). I will give a small fragment. «Throughout life of several generations the preservation of isolation between technological perfection of Europe both natural and human resources of Russia was one of main goals of foreign policy of the USA. In the early 1990s, when the United States gained undeniable superiority and Moscow lost control not only over the former Soviet Union, but also over the Russian state, this goal was neglected. Germany remains in absolute dependence on deliveries of huge volumes of natural gas from Russia. Russia, on the other hand, needs the technology that Germany has in abundance. In a similar way Germany needs inflow of human resources which would not create social stresses at immigration to Germany. One of obvious solutions of this problem is creation of German plants in Russia. Meanwhile the appeal of America to Germany for the help in Afghanistan created huge tensions between the USA and Germany, which was once one of the most faithful allies of the USA, and connected the German interests with Russia even more closely. All of this helps to explain why return of the USA to balance will demand in the coming decade the huge efforts directed to blocking of the German-Russian rapprochement».

Construction of Nord Stream began in April, 2010. In November, 2011 the commissioning of the first thread, and in October 2012 – of the second thread of this gas pipeline took place. In 2021, 59.2 billion cubic meters of gas (more than the design capacity) passed through both lines of Nord Stream pipeline.

In 2021, despite the sanctions imposed by the United States, two lines of Nord Stream-2 (capacity 55 billion cubic meters) were completed. However, the German authorities did not give permission for its commissioning.
In September, 2022 as a result of act of terrorism both strings of Nord Stream and one string of Nord Stream-2 were blown up. Gas supplies began to be carried out thanks to the 1.5 million LNG per year gas liquefaction plant, which was launched at the Portovaya compressor station in September 2022.

Russian gas transit through Ukraine has been steadily declining, and it stopped completely at the beginning of this year. Rising gas prices have led to the degradation of Europe’s energy-intensive industries. Increase in prices for gas led to degradation of the European power-intensive industry. Consumption of gas in the EU from 2021 to 2024 was reduced by 20%. Export of Russian pipeline gas to Europe (EU countries and Moldova) in 2024 made 32.1 billion cubic meters.
The EU authorities are talking about their desire to completely stop buying Russian gas. Stephen Lynch claims that if he purchases Nord Stream 2, the pipeline will be operational. Earlier the Nord Stream project was a symbol of direct partnership of Russia and the EU, without participation of intermediaries. Now the American intermediary says that the project cannot be launched without his participation. I wonder how much he will charge for his services especially as the new Minister of Economics of Germany Catharina Raykhe said that in the nearest future Germany needs to construct the 20 GW gas power plants to compensate instability of development of RES.