EU turns to Egypt and Israel to ensure alternative gas supplies

Article published in Brussels Morning

The EU signed a new three-year energy agreement with Egypt and Israel as Brussels remains determined to seek alternatives for its energy dependence on Russia. 

Recent discoveries in the Mediterranean have made the region a potential source of new imports.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed yesterday in Cairo by Israel’s Energy Minister, Karine Elharrar, along with Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum, Tarek El Molla, and the EU’s Energy Commissioner, Kadri Simson.

The EU also signed a trilateral MoU for the export of natural gas to Europe from Israel and other sources in the Eastern Mediterranean region which will be liquefied in Egypt before being sent to the EU.

“Today Egypt and Israel make a commitment to share our natural gas with Europe and to help with the energy crisis,” said Elharrar.

The agreement follows deals simitars to those between the EU and the US and the EU and Qatar.  

“This is a big step forward in the energy supply to Europe, but also for Egypt to become a regional energy hub. It is for us also very important to look forward into the new forms of energies. And these are, of course, the renewable energies,” said Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen.

el-Molla said the deal was a “milestone” and could be an opportunity to further increase cooperation between other Mediterranean countries. The European Commission said it now expects to import 7bcm of LNG from Egypt in 2022, up from an originally expected 5bcm. 

“I look forward to working with Egypt as COP27 Presidency to build on the good momentum from last year in Glasgow. Egypt is also a crucial partner in our efforts to move away from Russian fossil fuels and towards more reliable suppliers,” added von der Leyen.

Not enough

Despite the celebration of a new forged deal, analysts cautioned that the ability of either Egypt or Israel to ship large additional volumes to the EU in the short term was limited, and that the deal in Cairo would not be enough to fill the gap left by Russian deliveries, which accounted for about 40% of the bloc’s gas imports in 2021.

“The agreement does not lay out any specific timeline for the ramp-up in LNG flows from Egypt or for the construction of a new pipeline to ship extra volumes of Israeli gas to Egypt,” said Leo Kabouche, LNG market analyst at Energy Aspects in London to the Financial Times.

US to send two shiploads of gas to Bulgaria amid Russian’s energy cut

 Article published in Brussels Morning

Belgium, (Brussels Morning) — After Russia’s Gazprom cut off gas deliveries to Bulgaria on 27 April, the country is set to receive two shiploads of US gas on 8 June and 23 June.

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said two US gas tankers are headed to Bulgaria noting that a review of the options available to address the energy crisis showed that the gas price on the US market was a quarter of the EU price.

The two shiploads of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US were contracted directly with a US company during Petkov’s working visit to Washington on 9 and 10 May, according to the Bulgarian News Agency BTA.

Multiple suppliers

The PM said that the US lower price will end up being equivalent to the price of Gazprom supplies. Trying to secure multiple suppliers, Bulgaria has also forged a deal with Azerbaijan, with deliveries expected for 1 July. “I want to prove that Bulgaria is not dependent and that no one can twist its arms,” he said.

Speaking on the Bulgarian National Television (BNT) earlier on Sunday, the Prime Minister’s Chef de Cabinet, Lena Borislavova, said that the Azeri gas is priced at 25-26 euros, whereas the current price in Europe is 90 euros.

Borislavova said the country needs between “12 and 20 tankers of gas per year to guarantee supplies”. She added that negotiations are underway on medium- and long-term gas supplies “at prices three or four times lower than the last agreed prices with Gazprom”. 

Additional options are being sought for gas supplies from Turkmenistan, Egypt, Turkey and elsewhere. The long-term gas agreements will be signed directly with the suppliers, without any intermediaries.

National considerations

Despite having its own refinery infrastructure, Borislavova said that at the moment, no economic or legal considerations could lead to the nationalization of strategic facilities such as the LUKoil Neftochim refinery of Burgas, which is owned by Russia.

In a related development, the natural gas transmission and storage system operator Bulgartransgaz Executive Director Vladimir Malinov said that Bulgaria has started talks with Turkey for gas supplies through its territory. 

After visiting the Chiren gas storage facility on Sunday, Malinov told BNT that Bulgartransgaz expects to be able to fill it up by the autumn from the current 21% of its capacity, a normal volume for this time of the year. 

Around one million cubic metres of gas are fed to the facility on a daily basis. 

Malinov also said that Bulgaria is not going to suspend the transiting of Russian gas via its territory to Serbia and Hungary.

Conflict in Ukraine moves to dangerous rhetoric of chemical weapons

 

With the war in Ukraine entering its second month, several media outlets have started speculating over the possibility of chemical weapons being used in warzones across Ukrainian territory. 

During his official visit to Brussels last week, US President Joe Biden said NATO “would respond” if Russia used chemical weapons in Ukraine. When asked if the US had evidence that Vladimir Putin is under the possession of chemical weapons, Biden said he wouldn’t comment.

"We are partly concerned because we see the rhetoric and we see that Russia is trying to create some kind of pretext that it could use chemical and biological weapons in Ukraine,” said NATO’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Blame game

The concern, however, seems to be weaving on both sides of the battling parts. According to The Telegraph, Russia has accused US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, of funding biological weapons labs in Ukraine. The paper claims that the accusation has raised fears that the Kremlin is laying the groundwork to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.

On 8 March, the Chinese Foreign Ministry also accused Ukraine of maintaining dangerous biological weapons labs: "The US has 336 labs in 30 countries under its control, including 26 in Ukraine alone. It should give a full account of its biological military activities at home and abroad and subject itself to multilateral verification," said the spokesperson Zhao Lijian. 

US aware of “biological research facilities”

The US responded on 9 March with Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, long in charge of US policy in Ukraine, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Marco Rubio, hoping to debunk growing claims that there are chemical weapons labs in Ukraine, asked Nuland: “Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?”

Nuland did not deny the claim. With palpable discomfort and halting speech, the US diplomat acknowledged the existence of “biological research facilities” saying the US was concerned they would be used by Russian forces. “We are working with the Ukrainian forces to prevent that these research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach,” said Nuland.

On 15 March, in a short video, Gabbard said there are more than 25 US-funded biological laboratories in Ukraine and called for a ceasefire at the laboratories as they could spread dangerous pathogens. Gabbard urged for the labs to me “shut down immediately” and the pathogens they hold to be destroyed.

“Instead of trying to cover this up, the Biden-Harris Administration need to work with Russia, Ukraine, NATO and the UN to immediately implement a ceasefire for all military action in the vicinity of these labs,” urged Gabbard.

The Republican Senator Mitt Romney accused his ex-House counterpart of spreading “treasonous lies” that amounted to Kremlin propaganda: “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives,” tweeted Mitt Romney in response to Tulsi Gabbard’s video post.

Russia speaks

As for Moscow, it maintains that laboratories in Ukraine have been funded by the US military to develop biological weapons components, yet local staff was being kept in the dark about their research. 

The statement was given by Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, who commands the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces of Russia. “We believe that components of biological weapons were being made on the territory of Ukraine,” said Kirillov to RT .

On 17 March, Kirillov presented documents and imagery during a briefing with the Russian Defense Ministry, showing why the military has come to such a conclusion: “The documents have the signatures of real officials and are certified by the seals of organizations,” he said adding that “journalists and experts in the West” can “verify their veracity”.

One document, dated March 6, 2015 reportedly confirms the “direct participation of the Pentagon in the financing of military biological projects in Ukraine”, according to Kirillov. 

Kirillov went on saying that the US officially funded the projects through the Ukrainian Ministry of Health, based on the Agreement on Joint Biological Activities. However, the evidence shows that the real recipients of some $32 million in funds were Ukrainian Defense Ministry laboratories in Kyiv, Odessa, Lvov and Kharkov.

Countering bioweapons

As the blame-game goes on, evidence from the Washington Post’s archive dating back to 2005, reveals that, as of that year, the US and Ukraine agreed to work jointly to prevent the spread of biological weapons in Kyiv. The agreement was announced by former Senators Richard G. Lugar and Barack Obama.

One of the labs that received funding, according to the report, was the I.I. Mechnikov Antiplague Scientific and Research Institute, in the Black Sea port city of Odessa. It’s not clear, however, until when the agreement was in place between the US and Ukraine. 

Syria's reminiscences

On April 7, 2018, Douma, Syria, traveled the world after reports of the use of chemical weapons. To this day, what happened in Douma remains to be explained. After the episode, an investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) began. Expert toxicologists have ruled out the possibility that chlorine gas was the cause of the victims' deaths. However, leaked information from Wikileaks exposed how senior OPCW officials had censored the explosive discovery.

In the early days of the OPCW investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, toxicology experts ruled out the use of chlorine gas as the cause of death for the more than 40 civilians found at the scene. Instead of publishing this finding, senior OPCW officials withheld it and then launched an investigation into a veteran inspector who questioned OPCW's censorship.

The suppression of toxicologists is among a number of deceptions by the OPCW leadership aimed at corrupting the scientific process of the investigation at Douma, as detailed in The Grayzone’s investigation and the various official documents presented by Wikileaks.  

German toxicologists

In early June 2018, four OPCW staff went to Germany to meet with toxicologists/pharmacologists, all recognized world experts in chemical weapons poisoning. The trip was approved at the highest levels through a Mission Alert Order. The delegation consisted of Dr. Brendan Whelan and Dr. Sami Barrek, both senior members of Douma's investigation team, Dr. Marc Blum, Head of the OPCW Laboratory, and Dr. Soumik Paul, Head of the OPCW Health and Safety Branch.

German experts saw numerous photos and videos of the victims and were told what the alleged witnesses had described to inspectors. Some alleged witnesses claimed a rapid, even immediate onset of severe foaming due to exposure to a toxic chemical (Original Report for 7.82). As the final report revealed: “Victims began arriving [to the hospital known as Site 1] shortly after 7 pm with excessive salivation or foaming at the mouth.” (paragraph 8.56). The alleged attack took place around 7:00 pm (paragraph 8.58).

Within an hour, toxicologists easily confirmed what the OPCW team and other experts already suspected – that such a rapid onset of profuse foam was incompatible with exposure to chlorine. According to the leaked minutes of that meeting, previously published by Wikileaks:

“…experts [toxicologists] were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and exposure to chlorine. In particular, they stated that the appearance of excessive foam, due to pulmonary edema, observed in photos and reported by witnesses, would not occur in the short period of time between the reported occurrence of the alleged incident and the time when the videos were recorded (approximately 3-4 hours).”

 

The evidence was now overwhelming that the more than 40 victims filmed at Site 2 had not been killed by nerve agents or chlorine gas. But the Douma samples did not reveal any other toxic chemicals that could have caused the rapid foaming. Could it be that the highly toxic chemical had not been detected in the samples? The OPCW team and German toxicologists discussed this possibility, but found it unlikely.

Oliver Stone’s 2016 Ukraine on Fire defies mainstream narrative on Russia-Ukraine war

 Article published in Travel Tomorrow

Ukraine on Fire presents a likely controversial overview of Ukraine’s political history leading up to the 2014 protests in Euromaidan and shedding light on today’s military developments in Eastern Europe.

Directed by Igor Lopatonok and produced by Oscar winner Oliver Stone, the 2016 documentary defies the mainstream media narrative on the geopolitical analysis of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, spanning events from the World War II to the Cold War. The film features the international pressure over Ukraine — leading to an apparent coup d’état ousting the democratically elected Viktor Yanukovich and culminates with the implications of NATO expansion.

In the documentary, Oliver Stone uses his critical lens on the Ukraine crisis, and more specifically on the role played by the US. Labelled as propaganda by the Western media, Russia’s argument of “denazifying” Ukraine as a justification for the invasion is analysed in Ukraine on Fire with the spotlight on a number of neo-nazis groups that, over time, seemed to have incorporated the Ukrainian National Guard.

Ukrainian Nazis joining forces with Hitler

In a throwback to World War II, the documentary denounces the estimated 80,000 Ukrainian ultra-nationalists — notorious for their cruelty towards the Polish, the Jewish and Russian people — who have joined the Schutzstaffel, the infamous Nazi SS.

In 1929, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was founded by Stefan Bandera, an ardent nationalist known by the CIA for leading a “reign of terror” and masterminding several ethnic cleansing operations, such as the 1941 Babi Yar massacre, where nearly 34,000 Jews were killed. However, after the war, Bandera fled to Europe, backed by the CIA for safe entry.

Cold War

“The CIA’s fingerprints can be found throughout the conflict,” the film stated, referring to the aftermath of the protests in Ukraine, both the 2004 and 2014 revolutions and events dating back to the Cold War. According to the documentary, CIA documents declassified in 2016 reveal strong ties between US intelligence and Ukrainian nationalists since 1946.

Such ties would serve as a possible source of counter-intelligence against the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, Ukrainian nationalists were part of numerous military operations, including Operation Belladona, Operation Lynx, and Operation Trident. Yet, during the Nuremberg trials in 1945-1956, Ukrainian Nazis were spared from proper justice. “By 1951, the Agency [CIA] excused the illegal activities of OUN’s security branch in the name of Cold War necessity,” reads a declassified memo from the CIA.

The Ukrainian ultra-nationalist movement kept growing with names like Dmytro Dontsov, Andriy Melnyk and Roman Shukhevych shaping the neo-Nazi movement. In 1989, the Ukrainian nationalist organisation Narodny Rukh (People’s Movement) was created, serving as an incubator for neo-Nazi leaders against the Soviet Union’s trajectory towards the West guided by Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika and Glasnost policies.

Shortly before the end of the Soviet Union, in 1991, Oleh Tyahnybok founded yet another nationalist group, Svoboda, which ideology was the purging of Jews and ethnic Russians in Ukraine. As early as 2012, the BBC reported the danger of Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists, particularly Svoboda, and the EU passed a resolution condemning the group as anti-Semitic and xenophobic.

US ties with Svoboda

Despite the warnings from Europe, Victoria Nuland from the US State Department met Tyahnybok, Svoboda’s leader, in February 2014, ahead of the Euromaidan protests. The plot thickens when Nuland was caught on tape with the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, masterminding an apparent coup d’état. “Now it would be great to help glue this thing and have the UN help glue it and, you know, f*ck the EU,” said Nuland.

Recalling his troubled tenure as a President (2010-2014), Viktor Yanukovich told Oliver Stone: “My high-level contact was VP Joe Biden. We had frequent phone conversations but the problem was that Mr Biden said one thing but they did different things in Ukraine.”

As for Mr Pyatt, the US Ambassador, Yanukovich said he received visits from Maidan representatives all the time. “We got the impression that the headquarters in charge of the whole process was in the US embassy,” said Yanukovich.

EU and IMF pressure

Throwing back to 2013, Yanukovich explained that Ukraine was going through a difficult economic period and the country was torn between turning to the EU, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), or Russia. With an existing trade agreement with Russia, Yanukovich sought to negotiate a new — and better — agreement, but both the EU and the IMF offered “unacceptable solutions”, he said.

“A significant rise in utility rates, for electricity and natural gas. This would mean a lot more expenses for the people, while their income would stay at the same level,” said Yanukovich about the IMF’s proposal. Ukraine suggested other solutions, but these were officially rejected by the IMF in November 2013.

Kyiv was left with Russia, which said it was ready for partnership if their interests were taken into account. Interviewed by Oliver Stone, the Russian President Vladimir Putin said that an agreement with Ukraine “would mean that EU goods would enter the Russian market without any negotiations”, which was not tolerated by the EU.

Talking about the trade agreement proposed by the EU, Yanukovich said that Ukraine couldn’t go ahead because it “required essential economic expenses and Europe didn’t provide any loss balancing.”

Euromaidan

After Ukraine’s decision to move towards the East for trade partnerships, the documentary reveals the manufacturing of a protest, with Euromaidan right behind the corner. As the November 2013 protest started in Ukraine, three new TV channels went on the air and suddenly became stunningly popular. Spilno TV was launched on November 21, Hromadske TV went live on November 22 and Expresso TV followed on November 24. These channels went viral supporting the protests, which were asking for an alignment with the EU and encouraging more and more people to go to Maidan.

Eventually, the protests led to overthrowing the President Yanukovich after an apparent coordinated action between the US and Ukrainian nationalist groups. Such outcome was reported by the filmmaker as the result of a successful staged revolution which included “money, the media and techniques”.

NATO expansion

A crucial element featured in the documentary is NATO’s military threat bordering the Russian Federation. NATO has not stopped expanding since the fall of the Soviet Union, growing from 17 countries in 1990 to 30 today, several of which were once part of the Soviet-led Warsaw pact.

“Why do we react so vehemently to NATO’s expansion?” asked Putin. “We are concerned with the decision-making process. I know how decisions are made. As soon as the country becomes a member of NATO, it can’t resist the pressure of the USA.”

Putin stressed the military threat that NATO membership poses to Russia, saying that “anything at all can appear in such country such as missile defense systems, new bases, or, if necessary, new missile strike systems.”

Putin’s lack of sense of security has been compared to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when the US drew a red line in respect of the installation of medium-range missiles 70 km from its border and the world was at the brink of nuclear war.

“This is a very dangerous topic. It’s a topic of war. War between the US and Russia would be complete madness,” said Yanukovich referring to NATO expansion.

Described by critics as Russian propaganda, Oliver Stone’s Ukraine on Fire 2016 documentary presents verifiable claims that bring a different perspective when reflecting on the military escalation in Ukraine and have recently been voiced by the US political scientist John Mearsheimer.

Why is the EU fuelling a new arms race?

Article published in Brussels Morning

Europe’s role in mediating the war in Ukraine is under question following an investigative report that in effect suggests the EU is fuelling a new arms race. A second report, denounces the selling of weapons by EU member states to Moscow, since the 2014 embargo.

European Defence Fund

The joint report from the Transnational Institute (TI) and the European Network Against Arms Trade (ENAAT) is based on an analysis of the European Defence Fund (EDF) (2021-2027), which has an 8 billion euro budget for research and development (R&D) of military materiel. 

However, because it was still too early to conduct a detailed analysis of the EDF’s impact, the investigators explored two predecessor programmes — the Preparatory Action for Defence Research (PADR 2017–2019), with a budget of 90 million euro to fund defence research, and the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP 2019–2020), with a budget of 500 million euro to fund the development of defence equipment and technology.

The report is highly critical of the astronomic jump in the EDF’s budget 2017-2021, a 13.6-fold increase over that for the previous programmes. These budgets are intended to fund research and develop new weaponry, as well as to enhance existing armaments by integrating new technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), unmanned or autonomous systems.

Questionable principles

Those conducting the investigations claim the EU acted contrary to the bloc’s founding principle of promoting peace and suggest that the Union is trying to establish itself as a global military power. 

According to the report, the EU’s “decision-making processes and budgets have been captured by highly lucrative corporations that exploit these political spaces for their own gain.“ 

It accuses some of the corporations involved of “highly questionable practices“, which, it asserts, pose serious questions about human rights and the rule of law, two of the EU’s core values. 

Beneficiaries under the EDF are involved in “highly controversial arms exports” to countries experiencing armed conflict or with authoritarian rulers in regions where human rights violations are commonplace, the report claims. 

Regrettably, these practices seem to unfold by design. The TI and ENAAT report reveals that the European Commission proposal establishing the EDF was based on a report presented by 16 private representatives on Defence Research and that it included entire sections copied verbatim from the defence fund proposal as written by the representatives.

“Anti-war voices warned for years about the dangers of the EU pumping billions of taxpayer money into armament — a union founded on peace, churning funds into weapons of war”, MEO Clare Daly, exclaimed.

EU selling weapons to Russia

In continuous disregard for the principles the EU preaches, member states have been exposed as selling weapons to Russia since the 2014 embargo. Ten EU countries exported 346 million euro worth of military equipment, which is considered likely to have been deployed for use in the ongoing military conflict.

The deals were exposed by yet another inquiry, this time by Investigate Europe, which looked into the various types and origins of military apparatus shipped to Russia up until 2020, ranging from missiles, aircraft, rockets, torpedoes, and bombs to vehicles of war. 

France, Germany and Italy are in the top tier of these military “black sales”. Paris sold 152 million euro worth of military equipment to Russia, and accounted for 44% of European arms exported to the Kremlin.

“The 2014 arms embargo allowed contracts which were already signed to be completed. Therefore legal arms sales to Russia continued for some time, but no new contract was signed and deliveries dropped significantly”, MEP Nathalie Loiseau, Chair of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence told Brussels Morning.

MEP Nathalie Loiseau

According to Loiseau, France also canceled the contract for the sale of two Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia, despite the deals having been signed before 2014. The French MEP acknowledged the situation as “clearly inappropriate”, adding that the 2014 arms embargo “was not comprehensive enough”.

Germany exported 121.8 million euro in military equipment to Russia, representing 35% of all EU arms exports to Russia. The total mainly represented the sale of icebreaker vessels, but it also included rifles, and “special protection” vehicles. 

Italy, meanwhile, sold 22.5 million euro worth of military equipment to Moscow between 2015 and 2020. Military vehicles produced in Italy – the IVECO-manufactured Lynce model, for example   – were spotted by a TV channel La 7 journalist on the Ukrainian frontline at the beginning of March, according to the Investigate Report.

Other countries listed as selling artillery to Russia included Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Finland, Slovakia and Spain.