And a third story which appears to be about the UK Defence Minister’s travels in Europe. It’s an interesting read but this paragraph jumped out at me.
Especially the description of Nordstream 2 as a “genuine piece of leverage” for “all Allies in Europe’s.”
Which seems like an interesting way for the British to conduct post Brexit military diplomacy in Germany.
Not mentioned in the article: @BorisJohnson’s assertion that he is busy dealing with Ukraine and therefore can’t release a long awaited report about parties in Downing St.
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A short briefing from @FRANCE24 on the Elephant in the room in the #ukraine Crisis, which mentions the most important aspect at the end and leaves out several impt. Details.
Gas pipeline becomes bargaining chip against Russia
The US and UK have both made a big play of the announcement from the German FM confirming that NordStream 2 can be used as a “leverage” in this standoff. Which is true. But it is not quite so simple.
The report points out at the end that Russia is already restricting gas supply, leading to very high gas prices, which highlights the fact that Russian gas supplies to Europe also provides Russia significant leverage.
It seems that German, French, Russian and Ukrainian and @UnderSecStateP’s efforts yesterday to lower the temperature on the #UkraineCrisis have come spectacularly unstuck. English language Western media in particular are having none of it.
CNN has just had @StateDeptSpox Ned Price on, saying that if Russia invades Ukraine, the Russia-Germany Gas pipeline Nordstream 2 (completed - not online - opposed by US) will not proceed.
The remarks were made by @StateDeptSpox in this report from @NPR at 4.25pm US ET (10.25pm last night EU CEST). And in this case - with things moving so fast - the timing may actually be important.
@SecBlinken's briefing and announcement on this came at 12pm US ET (6pm CEST).
While the weakening of the Sahara east west water transport event has led to a weakening in the weird weather over the Arabian Peninsula, it has not stopped.
Most notably we have seen significant snowfall in Israel, Lebanon Jordan & Syria.
And with a major European (Atlantic) tropical rain/snow event now underway the rain and snow activity in the Levant is forecast to continue. Here's yesterday's precipitation forecast for the Southern Levant.
And the Northern Levant.... (both forecasts are through to 4th February.