rumors of russian gas for europe surface;

A close friend of Vladimir Putin - and like the Russian president, also a spy - has been engineering a restart of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the backing of US investors, a once unthinkable move which according to the FT, shows the breadth of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow. According to the Nikkei-owned publication, the efforts on a deal were the brainchild of Matthias Warnig, an ex-Stasi officer in East Germany who until 2023 ran Nord Stream 2’s parent company for the Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom.

Warnig’s plan involved outreach to the Trump team through US businessmenas part of back-channel efforts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine while deepening economic ties between the US and Russia.

If this was just some unilateral attempt to get the pipeline that was bombed by Western intelligence agents and assorited Ukrainian hangers-on back online, it would hardly be a surprise. However, according to the report it appears that at least several "prominent" Trump administration figures are aware of the initiative to bring in US investors, and they see it as part of the push to rebuild relations with Moscow.............more......