An elegant response, for a more... civilized age
The
Ukrainian responses to the US-BRD agreement regulating RU-UA gas and gas transit trade (I named it thus because I love the absurdity of it all) is starting to get attention of some serious analytic minds in Ukraine. Ruslan Bortnik just made a video about it, and he says basically what I wrote before - it's a waste of paper. He just added that it's not even a deal or an agreement, it's a
joint statement which is a bit less than a memorandum. And Ukraine loves
memorandums... They have to be thrilled by getting a Joint Statement.
To make the humiliation more obvious, Ze has finally gotten an invitation to the White House - for August 30. When a) the NS-2 will be most likely complete and b) the Congress will be on vacation, so he won't even be able to stir some unrest there.
Below is the current state of NS-2 line A construction (line B is already complete). Top right is Fortuna, moving west at about 0.6 nm per day. Bottom left is Akademik Chersky, moving east at maybe half the speed (but speeds vary a bit). It's 16.2 nm between them, so most likely they will meet in the second week of August. Then another week or two to do the last joint. Bar something unexpected, by the time Ze arrives in Washington, the whole pipeline should be in the testing stage.
Btw, Bortnik has inside knowledge from Ze's inner circle, and in a recent interview he said that Ze's group is working in a state of constant political shock, moving from one hopeless attempt to another (like the recent and already cancelled pivot to China), trying to somehow deal with a situation that cannot be dealt with. Not just relating to NS-2, but the whole political situation in Ukraine, and the outside pressures which now firmly push it towards Minsk 2, the Steinmeyer Formula, Donbass autonomy etc.
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