German authorities conducted raids on Wednesday in Berlin and Frankfurt as part of an investigation into a suspected attempt to sabotage the nation’s gas supply.<\/p>\n
The Federal Prosecutor\u2019s Office stated that police searched the properties of a Russian suspect and another individual not currently under investigation in the German capital. Additionally, the premises of an unnamed business in Frankfurt am Main were searched.<\/p>\n
The investigation is focusing on the sale of Gazprom’s Berlin-based subsidiary, Gazprom Germania, which occurred approximately one month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n
According to federal prosecutors, the entity was divested from the Russian Gazprom Group through indirect share sales at the end of March 2022. Subsequently, a Moscow-based company with no industry ties emerged as the new owner.<\/p>\n
This new owner then initiated the liquidation of Gazprom Germania, which at the time held at least 25% of Germany\u2019s natural gas storage capacity, as reported by prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors stated, “The accused – a Russian national – is charged with having supported the implementation of the liquidation resolution with this aim in mind.” They also noted that no arrests have been made in connection with the case.<\/p>\n
Prior to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Russia was a significant supplier of natural gas to Germany. Since then, Berlin has been compelled to rapidly decrease its dependence on Russian imports.<\/p>\n
Former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz remarked in late 2022 that Germany would not again become reliant on a strategic resource like gas. He stated at an economic forum organized by the German newspaper S\u00fcddeutsche Zeitung, “We have seen with Russia what it means to rely on a strategically crucial resource. My understanding from conversations with German business leaders is that we will not make that mistake a second time.”<\/p>\n
The European Union has committed to phasing out imports of Russian gas by late 2027 as part of its efforts to diversify its energy market.<\/p>\n
Michael Damianos, Cyprus’ minister for energy, commerce, and industry, said in January, “We are breaking away from detrimental reliance on Russian gas and taking a major step, in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation, towards an autonomous Energy Union.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German authorities have carried out raids in Berlin and Frankfurt as part of an investigation into an alleged attempt to sabotage the country’s gas supply. The probe is reportedly linked to the sale of Gazprom’s former German subsidiary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[56,57,52,55,50,54,51,53],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-berlin","tag-frankfurt","tag-gas-supply","tag-gazprom","tag-germany","tag-investigation","tag-russia","tag-sabotage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fastblogtheme.com\/pressnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}