A former spy friend and close to Vladimir Putin designed a restart of Russia Nord Stream 2 in Europe with the support of American investors, a formerly unthinkable decision that shows the extent of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow.
The efforts on an agreement, according to several people aware of the discussions, were the idea of Matthias Warnig, a former STASI officer in East Germany who until 2023, the parent company of Nord Stream 2 for the gas giant controlled by Kremlin Gazprom.
The Warnig plan involved the awareness of the Trump team through American businessmen, said the people, as part of the back efforts to negotiate the end of the Ukraine war while deepening economic ties between the United States and Russia.
Some figures from the Trump administration are aware of the initiative to call on American investors, according to Washington officials, and they see it as part of the thrust to rebuild relations with Moscow.
Although there have been several expressions of interest, a consortium of investors led by the United States has established the contours of a post-sanction agreement with Gazprom, according to a person with direct knowledge of talks who refused to disclose the identity of potential investors.
EU senior officials have become aware of the Nord Stream 2 discussion in recent weeks. The leaders of several European countries are concerned and have discussed the issue, according to several officials who know the discussions.
One of the two North Stream 2 pipelines was exploded in sabotage attacks in September 2022 which destroyed the two pipelines of its North Stream 1 Sister Sister Stream 1. The other North Stream 2 pipeline, which has an annual capacity of 27.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas, is not used but has never been used.
The last plan would in theory unprecedented in the theory of energy supplies to Europe, said the people, after the EU countries decided to end their dependence on Russian gas in the aftermath of the invasion.
But the obstacles are considerable. The United States would have to raise sanctions against Russia, Russia to agree to resume the sales it has cut during the war and Germany to allow gas to flow to all potential buyers in Europe.
“The United States would say:” Well, now, Russia will be reliable because the trustworthy Americans are in the middle “,” said a former senior American official, who was aware of some of the transmission efforts. American investors would collect “money for nothing,” he added.
Translections are involved while the Trump administration rushes to conclude a peace agreement through bilateral discussions with Russia that have excluded Europe and Ukraine, frightening European capitals that fear American relaxation with Moscow could threaten the continent. Trump promised more in -depth economic cooperation with Russia if a peace agreement can be concluded.
Putin, the president of Russia, discussed the economic benefits he says that the United States could harvest with the Kremlin in the event of a settlement in Ukraine, saying that “several companies” were already in contact with potential agreements.
Nord Stream 2 AG, the Swiss parent company of the pipeline, received an exceptional stay in bankruptcy procedure in January of at least four months.
According to an expected justice document, the Nord Stream 2 – Gazprom shareholder – argued that the new Trump administration, as well as the German elections in February 2025, “may probably have significant consequences on the circumstances of North Stream 2” to justify a delay. The submission underlined “complex geopolitical affairs” and the sanctions regime.
Warnig told Financial Times that he was “not involved in any discussion with American politicians or representatives”, adding that he “followed the rules in this regard [as a] American sanctioned person ”.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Putin, said he had had no information on discussions concerning the pipeline. Gazprom refused to comment. A lawyer representative Nord Stream 2 in the Swiss insolvency procedure and a depositary committed by the Northern Steam 2 creditors court did not respond to requests for comments from the FT.
Warnig, 69, said that he had become a close friend of Putin in the 1990s after setting up an office for lender Dresdner Bank in Saint Petersburg, where Putin then unknown headed the city’s foreign relations committee.
The two have become so close that Putin asked Warnig to put her daughters at the banker’s house in Rödermark when their mother was seriously injured in a car accident.
Putin, who speaks the German fluently, taught the children of Warnig in Skier in Davos and invited him to his father’s funeral, according to an interview in 2023 with the former Stasi officer in Die Zeit.
But Warnig described Putin’s invasion of an “indescribable error” and resigned advice from two energy companies managed by the Kremlin after the war in Ukraine broke out in 2022.
He told Die Zeit that he had made a personal call to Putin to end the invasion for a few months and said that the Russian president was so isolated that “the only person who can still tell him something was me”.
Warnig left Nord Stream 2 AG, the Russian company which manages the pipeline in 2023, but told Die Zeit that the director general of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, had guaranteed to cover his costs in the hope of saving what was left.
Joe Biden’s US administration sanctioned Warnig and Nord Stream 2 AG in 2022. Biden officials showed little interest in a proposal to buy Nord Stream 2 last year in Stephen Lynch, an American businessman with a working record in Russia.
Other potential investors have come forward since Lynch expressed his first time. The person with direct knowledge of Gazprom discussions said their advanced talks were with a different consortium from Lynch led by the United States.
Lynch refused to comment when he was contacted by the FT. He asked for a license to control the office of foreign assets of the US Treasury for the Stream Nord proposal. Lynch has already been granted to bid for the former Swiss subsidiary of the Russian lender sanctioned Sberbank in 2022.
Trump was frank in his pipeline review during his first mandate as president. It has become a symbol for those who blamed Germany – and Europe by extension – to rely too much on Russian gas and help finance the Moscow military machine.
But part of Trump’s team now see the pipeline, which extends from Russian Vyborg to the Gulf of Finland in Grieswald on the German Baltic Coast, as a strategic asset which can be exploited in peace talks in Ukraine, according to administration officials.
The complex ownership structure of Nord Stream 2 presents serious potential obstacles for any investment.
Nord Stream 2 belongs 100% by Gazprom. But five European energy companies – Shell, Uniper, OMV, Engie and Wintershall – have collectively provided about half of its $ 11 billion construction costs thanks to loans. The five European companies have struck these debts.
The German government in 2022 disconnected the Nord Stream 2 license procedure and never published the documents required to operate it.
Pipeline ownership could in theory give investors a lever to control Russian gas flows to Europe, which is a key market for exports of American liquefied natural gas shipped through the Atlantic in oil tankers.
But the former senior American officials and Western businessmen with investment experience in Russia said that the signing of Trump and Putin would not be enough to operate Nord Stream 2.
“I cannot imagine the board of directors of large American companies saying:” Hey, are currently going on the Russian market “, and the Russians also know it – they have seen these oscillations in American politics,” said a former senior American official.
“Europe still has sanctions in place, and Germany registering for the rehabilitation of Nord Stream would cause enormous rockets. Something of such is an extinguished path.
Additional report: Olaf Storbeck in Frankfurt, Jamie Smyth and James Fontanella-Khan in New York, Laura Pitel and Courtney Weaver in Berlin, Alex Rogers in Washington, Tabby Kinder in San Francisco and Malcolm Moore in London in London
Cleve Jones cartography
