A map showing some of the main pipeline routes between Russia and Europe. (CBC)
CBC: Missiles fly, but Ukraine's pipeline network keeps Russian gas flowing to Europe
Russia supplies 45% of EU's gas imports, earning $900M US a day. Neither side looks ready to sever ties yet
On the world stage, the words "energy security" prompt debates about diversifying supply and decreasing reliance on bad actors, but for Sergiy Makogon, their meaning is more literal: how to keep the network of close to 40,000 kilometres of natural gas pipelines that crisscross his country functioning in the middle of a war.
On the day CBC spoke to him last week, the CEO of Ukraine's Gas Transmission System Operator was busy rerouting a pipeline near the northern city of Kharkiv that was just hit by a missile and reassuring several workers at a compressor station seized by Moscow-backed separatist fighters in Eastern Ukraine.
He was also struggling to figure out a way to get gas to Mariupol, whose residents have been cut off from heat and electricity since airstrikes damaged a pipeline more than a month ago.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: This is one of those situations where the contradictions of the conflict are playing-out.
Ukraine is demanding the EU to sanction and boycott Russian oil and gas and thereby deprive Russia of billions in energy revenues. But the Kyiv government can easily shut down this pipeline network if they choose to.
Update: This is one of the reasons why Germany wants the gas to continue to flow .... Costs to Germany of Russian gas freeze estimated (RT).