A local official confirmed to Swiss radio channel SRF that the Swiss business behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline had filed for bankruptcy and sacked all 106 of its workers.
Nord Stream 2 was one of the first targets of the flurry of Western sanctions generated by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. It was long considered as a Kremlin influence project that would strengthen Europe’s energy dependency on Russia.
Last Tuesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that the approval of the $11 billion natural gas pipeline will be halted, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched troops to eastern Ukraine for a “peacekeeping” mission. The pipeline is complete, but the gas has not yet begun to flow.
Following that, the US revoked sanctions exemptions for Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officials, thereby killing a project that had given President Biden and the trans-Atlantic alliance enormous issues.
“The firm had to terminate contracts with workers as a result of recent geopolitical developments that led to the application of US sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG. This is a really unfortunate event for us “In a statement, Nord Stream 2 AG, a fully owned subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom, said Reuters.
Despite the West’s and private corporations’ efforts to entirely isolate Russia over its unwarranted aggression on Ukraine, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder — the chairman of the board of Nord Stream 2 AG — has yet to sever his profitable links with Russian energy giants.
