Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the South Stream gas export project in 2007. All along, Russia lacked the gas volumes and financing that this gigantic project presupposed. Moscow poured all its resources into Nord Stream. It did not seriously intend South Stream as an energy supply project, but rather as a political project, with many hallmarks of a political bluff. Russia’s current attempts to resuscitate South Stream in the Balkans and Italy (see EDM, March 3) are a déjà vu in that sense, admittedly on a shrunken scale—therefore, perhaps slightly less unrealistic, but still in the shadow of “classical” South …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation