24 May 2019 — Strategic Culture Foundation

The US sent Energy Secretary Rick Perry to the inauguration of the new Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to announce the sanctions bill on Gazprom’s Nordstream 2 pipeline would pass.

I can’t tell what’s more pathetic at this point, the neocons in Trump’s administration thinking that sanctions actually achieve their goals or using them to suck up to a new president they don’t actively control yet.

Think about this. Perry goes to Kiev for nothing more than a photo op to assure Zelenskiy that the US won’t abandon the struggle stick it to the Russians. He does this with no sense of shame or irony after spending five years destroying Ukraine with an ill-advised coup which ushered in the chaos that brought Zelenskiy to power.

The hypocrisy of it all is stunning.

Outgoing US puppet Petro Poroshenko was such a disaster that Ukrainians voted 3 to 1 to get rid of him in favor of a political neophyte and television comic.

That’s how badly the US has mismanaged Ukrainian post-coup affairs. And the Russians are supposed to be the bad guys in this scenario?

And now Perry is going to virtue signal that the US will sanction Nordstream 2 to keep their access to Ukraine’s highest office? Zelenskiy may be a neophyte but he’s not stupid either.

The US’s opposition to Nordstream 2 is mainly for its own purposes. Just like its interest in Ukraine is purely selfish. President Trump wants the gas volumes slated for Nordstream 2 to go to US LNG exporters first. Ukraine isn’t all that important in the end to him.

Stopping Nordstream 2 is supposed to do two things. Force Russia to the bargaining table with Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state gas transit company, and cut a new deal since the old one is expiring at the end of this year.

It’s also meant to force Germany to buy more expensive US LNG. However, Trump can raise Germany’s costs he will. This, to him, is the way to fix them stealing from the US by building car factories in Indiana and Tennessee and selling us BMWs, Volkswagens and Porsches.

Germany is finally standing up for itself somewhat, adamantly declaring that it is ‘not a colony of the US’ even though, let’s get real, it is. Talk is cheap, however, and now is the time to act independently on major policy decisions.