Vladimir Putin finally got what he’s been doggedly pursuing these past few years: a gas transit route into Europe that bypasses Ukraine. The Russian President inked a deal with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul earlier this week that would send more than 30 billion cubic meters of gas Turkey’s way every year. These supplies would transit two parallel pipelines on the seabed of the Black Sea, both operated by Gazprom. One would supply Turkey with discount gas while the other would supply other European customers.
Let’s take these two proposed pipelines one at a time. The first, the one that ends in Turkey, is the product of rapprochement between Putin and Erdogan after a period of heightened tensions following the shooting down of a Russian warplane along Turkey’s border with Syria nearly one year ago. The fact that the two leaders were able to put aside their differences and agree on this project is, according to the FT, “stoking fears in the west that Moscow is exploiting tensions between Turkey, a NATO member with hopes of EU accession, and its traditional allies.” As it well should: the fact is that the TurkStream deal was stalled at the time of the Turkish shoot-down. That the deal was signed represents a real breakthrough.
