The author is director of Re: Russia. Expertise, Analysis and Policy Network and a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna
Fifty-three years ago, the ruling Politburo in Moscow approved a “gas for pipes” deal that marked a breakthrough in economic relations between the Soviet Union and western Europe. It provided for the delivery of large-diameter pipes from West Germany to the USSR to be used for pipeline construction. So began an era of energy co-operation between Europeans and Russians that is now ending before our eyes.
Rising Soviet-Chinese tensions in the 1960s had led the Politburo to conclude that they needed detente with the capitalist world. At that time China, despite sharing Moscow’s communist ideology, seemed more of a threat than the western democracies. The pipeline deal symbolised the Kremlin’s bridge-building to the west. Today, these perceptions have turned completely round. Moscow now sees the west as a source of existential threats and China as a more reliable partner. The pipe of friendship with the west has become a pipe of war.