Gazprom's top partners in South Stream are Italy's ENI, France's EDF, Austria's OMV and Germany's Wintershall, a subsidiary of BASF. South Stream's construction depends heavily on European know-how.
If the full sanction list is eventually enforced by the EU (and that includes restricting Russian access to piping, drilling pipes, floating or submersible drilling platforms, and floating cranes) that would delay for a long time Pipelinistan projects as well as the development in Europe of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. The EU needs South Stream much more than Russia -- which can always sell more gas to Asia anyway.
The real, no-holds-barred reason for the Empire of Chaos's obsessive economic war on Russia is that Moscow, as a BRICS member, alongside especially China and Brazil, is at the leading edge of emerging powers challenging the global financial/political (dis)order -- wallowing in the mire of casino capitalism -- dictated by the Empire of Chaos.
And it gets "curiouser and curiouser," because the effect of the sanctions hysteria has been to accumulate even more sympathy from the developing world towards Russia. The typical Washington rumbling about "the world" united to "isolate" Russia -- in a replay of the Iran case -- only applies to NATO.
I have closely followed the latest chapters in Eurasia integration, from the Russia-China gas "deal of the century" clinched in Shanghai to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum and then closer Eurasia-South America integration at the BRICS summit in Brazil, which created the New Development Bank and advanced the BRICS drive to develop their own parallel global institutions.
President Putin even proposed a BRICS energy coalition, complete with nuclear power agreements and its own "fuel reserve bank and an energy policy institute." Moscow -- as well as Beijing - is actively strengthening energy deals across South America, as in Rosatom signing with both Argentina and Brazil to build nuclear power plants.
Eurasia integration, on the Asian front, proceeds unabated. Russia will sell more gas at lower prices not only to China, but also, in the near future, to Japan and South Korea as well. Beijing, meanwhile, is carefully moving its financial, economic and geopolitical pieces on the chessboard, and now on full red alert regarding the sanctions hysteria; the collective leadership very well knows that the target one day may be Russia because of Ukraine, but the next day may be China, because of the South China Sea or even a Hong Kong currently moving towards an impasse; should candidates for Hong Kong chief executive be chosen by direct democracy, or by committee, as Beijing prefers?
The key point is, forget about a US-Russia reset. The Russia-China strategic partnership will strengthen. China is preparing itself for its turn in the sanction hysteria show. And for the foreseeable future, the new game in the chessboard is Cold War 2.0.
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