The Duran Podcast - EU plan to crush Kaliningrad fails

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

EU plan to crush Kaliningrad fails

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the energy situation in Europe. Let's talk about the electricity situation maybe in Europe as well. I don't know if we've actually talked about this in detail. The Baltics moving away from the Russian electric grid, and now they're on the EU electric grid. We did touch on this a little bit. Yeah. We made it a week ago.

But the plan for all of this was to get Kalinigrad, right? That's what they wanted to do. Of course it was. We've actually had quite a lot of information about this because there was a discussion about it in Moscow, which was shared by none other than Putin himself. Anyway, basically, the story is that during the Soviet time, a unified electricity grid was created, bringing together Western Russia, Belarus, and the Baltic states. But after all, they're all part of the Soviet Union at that time.

And of course, that included Kaliningrad as well. So the idea that they came up with, the Europeans came up with back in 2018 or perhaps even before, was to disconnect the Baltic states from the Russian electricity grid. That would then disconnect Kaliningrad from the Russian electricity grid. The European Union would provide electricity supplies to the Baltic states, so they'd be able to keep the lights on. But Kaliningrad does not have a direct border with Russia, so it would be plunged into darkness. There would be a huge crisis there. And, well, that would open the way for all sorts of things to happen, you know, to force the Russians into perhaps making concessions.

perhaps in the fantasies of some people, even to move in and to occupy Kaliningrad itself. So that would still have been very, very dangerous. Well, the Russians thought that that was going to happen. They started preparing from 2014. Putin gave a order, made an order then that Kaliningrad needed to be ready for this electricity cutoff. Apparently four power stations were created in Kaliningrad, transmission lines, everything was done to make Kaliningrad ready for this cut off, which was to come. Apparently that was all successful.

Kaliningrad continues to receive stable electricity supplies. There's been no increase in electricity prices in Kaliningrad. The Europeans and the Baltic states, which planned this. this thing, which planned the cut out, failed to do anything similar. The Baltic states have been cut off from the Russian electricity grid. They've had to import electricity from the European Union. Nobody really prepared for it. Nobody really planned for it.

Electricity prices of the Baltic states have doubled. See, there are apparently power cuts and all kinds of shortages going on. The pulp and paper mill, which is one of the few industrial enterprises left in Estonia has had to close. So instead of Kaliningrad being plunged into darkness, it's the Baltic states that now have problems with their electricity. Now, this is the same story that's playing out right across Europe on a much bigger scale, obviously so far, without anything of the same drama. But something very similar. You remember a couple of months ago, when a couple of weeks, back in January, when Zelensky said that he was not going to renew the transit contract for Russian gas to transit across the pipelines, the Ukrainian pipelines to Europe. We had all those reports, all those assurances from the European Commission that there's nothing to worry about.

There's all been prepared for. It's all been facted in all of those. things, well, it turned out otherwise. There are now apparently critical shortages in the European gas reserves. They've fallen below 50% altogether, which is far worse than normally happens at this time of year. Energy gas prices have been shooting up across Europe. The European Commission started to panic. They've now said that There is, they've now reduced the requirement for European countries to stop pile gas in the reserves during the summer. So that means that they can use more gas to get through the winter.

But of course, all that threatens to do is to create more problems next winter when the winter comes around. Because it's likely that when we reach autumn winter, there will be less. less gas in the reserves than there ought to be at the start of the next winter season. So all of this story about, you know, we've been able to get, wean ourselves off Russian gas, we've been able to find our way out of these problems. We see that all of these lies that we've been hearing since 2022, they're starting to catch up with reality. I wonder what would happen if they lose the US, LNG?

Which is not impossible. I mean, this is a thing to bear in mind. Do they have any other options? They have no options. I mean, they talk about Qatar and they talk about Qatar all the time. You remember the project to rebuild the pipeline across Syria? Qatar has said, no, we're not interested in that. They've invested massively in LNG.

Why would they now be thinking about a pipeline? A lot of Qatar's gas, some of it goes to Europe. Most of it goes to East Asia. There's gas from Algeria, but of course that doesn't have anything like the necessary volumes. They need LNG from the US, and of course, though they don't like to talk about it very much, they've had to import more and more LNG from Russia. And there's an article in the financial types, which says, you know, we've got this major problem. It's, of course, always described as a problem that Russia is becoming this massive producer of LNG.

The Yarmal LNG facilities are enormously huge and tremendously efficient that they could supply Europe with LNG. So it's a real problem that as prices rise in Europe and shortages grow, that there is this Russian facility, which is a temptation. to the Europeans, perhaps to start importing more gas directly from Russia again. That's a problem, apparently, at least in the minds of the financial times. But the fact is, I mean, this cut off of Russian pipeline gas, which they decided to do in 2022, has turned into a disaster. They were protected to some extent by the fact that they had two relatively mild. winters in a row, they were able to achieve to avoid blackouts through a huge amount of demand

destruction. In other words, closing down factories or mothballing factories and doing that sort of thing. They were also bailed out by very expensive imports of American LNG. But in the end, this is all now catching up on them. And they don't really have an answer to any of this. Yeah, just a final comment or question. And they're moving forward with the 16th Sanctures package, which is going to be targeting the Russian shadow fleet. What are they thinking? Well, I mean, why?

Well, indeed. I mean, they're doing all of that at precisely the time when the Americans are talking about normalizing their relations with the Russians and looking for ways eventually to start lifting sanctions. So I mean, it's completely irrational. And, you know, going after the shadow fleet, apparently they also want to now lower the price cap on Russian oil. You know, the oil that gets shipped along, you know, through around the world, which this is a Biden administration idea, but they seem to still be running with it. Anyway, I I mean, all that's going to happen is that all those tough-minded, ruthless, incredibly

acquisitive ship owners, brokers, dealers, all of those people, they're going to rub their hands with delight. They're going to say, this is a wonderful opportunity to stock carth on cheap Russian gas, trading around the world. The Russians will give discounts. Bear in mind, they will probably give some discounts now. enough to make real problems for themselves, but there will be some of this guns. So all of these people are going to rub their hands with glee, they're going to say, now it's

the time to get as much Russian gas as we can at relatively low prices. We know the Americans are going to live the sanctions eventually, so we're not going to be underwriting real risk. If we do that, and in the meantime, we can trade with all of this gas, we can launder it, we can pass it through Karachi or Jakarta or wherever, we can send it in the Europeans and even higher prices. So you're going to make all these very, very tough, inquisitive people. You're going to make them even richer than they already are. It really does make you wonder who exactly is running things in Brussels and whether they have any idea of what they're doing about anything anymore. And you pass on the cost to the citizens of Europe?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. All right, we will end the video there. The durand.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Pitchie, Telegram, Rockfin, and X. Go to the Duran Shop, pick up some merch like what we are wearing in this video. Update. The links in the description box down below. Take care.