Secret Gazprom plan: Germany only escaped Putin’s energy attack thanks to two whistleblowers | A Handelsblatt investigation uncovers perfidious plan to blackmail Germany with gas. Two courageous whistleblowers, the heroes of the story, helped the German government to avert a gas crisis in April 2022
by GirasoleDE
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>When Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed his troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022, many people had no idea that he would also set his sights on Germany. Germany’s Achilles’ heel: its dependence on gas. Putin’s grand plan was to use this dependency to plunge Germany into energy chaos. As the [“Handelsblatt”](https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/das-gazprom-komplott-groesstmoeglicher-schaden-putins-geheimangriff-auf-die-deutsche-wirtschaft/29533678.html) [Paywall] investigated, two Russians of all people thwarted the dictator’s game.
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>As a result, Germany was on the brink of a critical gas supply situation in April 2022. The German government had to act quickly to avert an impending gas crisis at the last minute, so to speak.
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>According to Handelsblatt, the Russian energy giant Gazprom was planning to manipulate gas supplies to Germany. Two Russian managers from Gazprom Germania informed the German government of their parent company’s intentions. In response to the statements of the two whistleblowers, a crisis team consisting of members of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWK) and the Federal Chancellery was formed to take countermeasures.
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>A key moment in this chronology was a meeting at the end of March 2022, when representatives from St. Petersburg, the headquarters of Gazprom, summoned the management of Gazprom Germania to Berlin. They were informed that Gazprom Germania was now under the control of a largely unknown company run by a Moscow DJ as a front man.
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>The covert plan was to stir up fears of a collapse in gas supplies in the coming winter and provoke demonstrations in Germany. The aim was to persuade Germany to negotiate with Russia. If this had happened, almost half of Germany’s gas demand would have remained unmet, as Gazprom Germania was supplying 500 customers at the time, including industrial companies and gas suppliers.
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>At the end of March 2022, Handelsblatt reported for the first time that the German government was considering nationalizing Gazprom Germania in order to bridge financial bottlenecks. The news was met with opposition in the Kremlin. At that time, no one in Germany was aware of Moscow’s liquidity plans.
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>In a decisive turning point on April 1, 2022, concerned managers of Gazprom Germania finally presented plans to liquidate the company to the BMWK. The crisis team led by State Secretary Udo Philipp, Head of the Economics Department Philipp Steinberg, the then Head of Sub-Department Ulrich Benterbusch, Head of the Chancellery Group Frank Wetzel and Chancellery Advisor Jörg Kukies then quickly developed a plan to place Gazprom Germania under the fiduciary administration of the Federal Network Agency.
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>This was officially done under the pretext of financial difficulties in order to avoid expropriation and compensation claims. As is well known, the head of the grid agency Klaus Müller became the trustee. Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) personally agreed to the Blitzplan, writes the Handelsblatt.
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>The crisis team feared that the management of Gazprom Germania would initiate liquidation, transfer the company’s assets to Russia and terminate the supply contracts as early as April 4, 2022, i.e. three days after the two whistleblowers’ tip-off.
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>The story took another turn when the Kremlin banned Russian companies from doing business with Gazprom Germania in May 2022 and Gazprom reduced its gas exports to Germany via Nord Stream 1. In August, gas exports were stopped completely, followed by a bomb attack on Nord Stream 1 in September.
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>In June 2022, the German government supported Gazprom Germania with a billion-euro loan, renamed the company Sefe (Securing Energy for Europe GmbH) and appointed energy manager Egbert Lage as Managing Director. The company was nationalized in November 2022.
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>That weekend in early April, Germany narrowly escaped an energy emergency thanks to two courageous Russian whistleblowers. “They are the real heroes of this story,” Handelsblatt quotes one of those involved. Both now have to fear for their lives for their courage.
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>The two managers support the crisis management team’s decision to place the Gazprom subsidiary under the supervision of the Federal Network Agency. They also wanted to ensure the continued existence of the company. As reported by Handelsblatt, the German government offered the two whistleblowers personal protection at the end of the crisis weekend. According to the report, they now have German citizenship.
*Translated with DeepL.com (free version)*
Secret plan? The whole world had been warning them that this was going to be a possibility. No one should be patting themselves on the back for narrowly avoiding disaster. They should be reevaluating how they ended up putting themselves in such a risky situation.
TL; DR The whistleblowers were two Russian Gazprom managers, who have since then escaped to Germany and have some kind of federal protection.
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It’s so telling that the people who hate Putin’s regime most are the ones closest to it. Russia’s neighbors — and Russians themselves. To know Putin is to loathe him and all he envisions for the world.
Now if only more Russians could see that….
Germany needed whistleblowers to tell them russia will blackmail them with energy? I thought that was obvious.