And all the input your b w story. Now, on to the, [000 00 00;00] the russia home to the worlds biggest natural gas reserves. The gas is needed, especially in europe. And to the end of the cold war, ushered in an era of Conflicting Energy dependencies and concerns. In the west. Youre giving the soviet union the heart currency and theyre using that to build up their military. And this is going to come back to haunt. Meanwhile, the 1980s, march, the beginning of one mans extraordinary career. As a case of this stuff, you have to be able to manipulate people because it has no such a single stomach. You should be good. Gas is one of his 2 main tools for coersion, for leverage for influence. Soviet traditions continue golf oil and gas dependencies as a political weapon was par for the course, and the warsaw pact company, one of the worlds most powerful men, history teacher, equally wielded. Whats probably his most effective weapon. With the help of gas problem, Vladimir Putin has implemented policies designed to strike fear into the wider world. The whole purpose of north stream was to be able to pressure eyes centrally, me see, or north soon. One was a project. Teams had allow when youre russians to play hardball against us, the the molten insula in western siberia. The regents Indigenous People maintain 1000 year old traditions on the tundra. Here. The natives are reindeer herders, and michael 0 at the is their leader. Hes responsible for this group of about 40 minutes. Theyre on the move every day. Its going pretty well. Now. Its much more difficult in ottoman the name thats migrate to keep their animals fed. Their root has become increasingly difficult in recent years. The ones on touch nature of the amount peninsula is no more. The solution from the hardest crossing is still ahead of us. Move on and cover. Its a long stretch where the wide river and concrete road gives me much more concrete roads by search the tundra to provide access to one of russias largest natural gas deposits. The both on and cobo, gas field operated by gas from the biggest Extraction Company in the world. The business of blue gold has been about politics, money, and above all power. For decades. The people are explorers in the Energy Industry. Youre always looking for a giant if youre looking for a large field, which has low unit cost, which will provide you with supply over 30 years, they are very few giants left in the world that we know about. One country has benefited disproportionately for germany, the russian hydrocarbon bass. The gas base is in new orleans. So for large supply, low unit cost, you can do better on a sure economic basis. Then more cheap supply from russian. The youre going home, correct . Let be assess the Worlds LargestChemical Company for 8 years. Gotcha. To be, i guess, maybe 3 things for b, a ss, restrict, firstly, and most importantly to gets a raw material and quote, chemistry begins with a carbon atom people. Secondly, we need a lot of hospital, and thirdly, we also need the electricity to run our plants. We need the actual gas bill to be as f, b a s as a gas strategy has always focused on one thing. Thats simple risk minimization. Meaning that means access to oil and gas it, which is why we wanted to source up to 50 percent of our carbon needs ourselves. As in the last bill, that was the driving force behind everything we did to go to with this while at the play golf. But unimaginative, you must all be s, f e on and gas problem signed a contract for the construction of a pipeline through the baltic. Sea just before the 2005 german parliamentary elections use inside towson and we joined the joint venture to develop a new catholic field on western siberia in 2003. And then how long . Because then we said, ok, lets bring the cheap gas to central euro as well to ones. And the idea of whats to connect germany via this pipeline to our gas field side, unzipping hands, ease north stream warranty, youll be tied in on this up. Lots, 3 mines, chancellor. Gerhard schroeder had been a key ally of be assessed for years. You have thoughts and i have to represent german interest as one, especially when it comes to Energy Security for the German Economy. That former nato analyst Richard Anderson outlined in 2006 how natural gas could threaten europe, security its pretty typical for military analysts to look at energy and how it can often be a source of conflict. Rushes Energy Dominance is an area of concern, is that data analysts have certainly been looking at for the past several decades. Natural gas gets used for producing electricity gets used for heating. Its the basic element that gets used to make plastics to make fertilizers. Its the life blood of a lot of industrial economies. So this is an Old Soviet Union map. Here in the center. You can see some major natural gas and oil fields that were developed during soviet times. In the case of russia, i think its been pretty clear, especially of late. The energy often can be the printers for to a war, centered by president kennedy, the west, germanys chief of state. In 1963, the Kennedy Administration tried to prevent the construction of the durish pop pipeline from the soviet union to eastern europe. Minus one was providing the pipes and other equipment, the Us Government occasion ministration, told them to stop doing it, which they did. West german chancellor, billy bryant then ushered in the countries knew us pull the tech thong relations detente, and trade contracts were signed for the construction of Gas Pipelines. The work began in 1970 on the pipeline that would finally connect siberia with germany. Because i was i or a chance minister of the soviet gas industry, celebrates a deal worth 5000000000 together with these german partners. Guys from the soviet union arrives at the transfer station for the 1st time. And so get on your advocates. Stop. Hi, go for launch fits up. The minutes of the economy minister deeply excited the soviet yes it is. Got hey, was the gas launch as the result of the normalization of relations for the russians. The deal was basically about hard currency that they needed because their economy was faltering and they needed the money from the west to keep the whole show going. How much Schmidt Brown successor also turned to siberia gaps. A 2nd pipeline to europe was built based on dispensing during chancellor schmidts visit to moscow. German company signed a 3rd such contract valid until the year 2000 and get the schmidt deflected us president jimmy carter with the words trading partners dont shoot at each other. In fact, president carter wrote, apparently, in his notes that he was really tired of the us providing the stick and europeans competing to provide the carrot to incentivize the soviet behaviors that us washington was looking at the saying that youre giving to the soviet union hard currency and theyre using that to build up their military. And this is going to come back to haunt us. The special dont much i know that was even in the argument. Best then fun. Youre making yourselves dependent on the soviet superpower or ideological opponents of things. How can you, as nato members do such that they have to, as be conducted . So as month the, the worries in the american side, were about dependence. That russia would use energy as a political weapon. And that it would put your in germany in a position where it couldnt stand up to the soviet union. And so this was all seen as part of the overall soviet strategy to weaken the west and to break up nato. The situation poland then reached a boiling point. The government imposed martial law in 1981, despite protests by the solely dano shed trade union. And new us president Ronald Reagan reacted with sanctions to disrupt russias natural gas trade. The United States has taken immediate action to suspend major elements of our economic relationships with the polish government and were proposing to our allies, a further restriction of High Technology exports to pull the new soviet pipeline to germany was built anyway. The sanctions actually were not very effective and also divided the wes margaret satcher said that were losing jobs because were not able to supply equipment for that pipeline. The us business, once im happy about this, the us was also selling components and the us argument for us, if we did consol these things, then you know, our competitors in europe will sell the equipment. So in the end they did show the sanctions. Theres no secret that i realized didnt agree with this action. Im pleased to announce that the industrialized democracies reached substantial agreement on a plan of action. They did work out a compromise in, in the 1980s which put a limit on the amount of so the gas that went to europe and also ensure that there would be norwegian gas coming to europe. So that there was some diversification. Washington tried to convince germany to stop relying on russian gas, but most continued to come from siberia to them. As a young diplomat, i was in the Washington Embassy and the a basset, or was really proud that hed successfully argued against the americans pipeline embargo down like on the we were all inspired by the idea that what we were doing was part of the policy of improving relations, it made sense to everybody, but no, i really dont remember any one at the time saying this is heading in the wrong direction. I myself did this gave me such an extra but Us Intelligence services werent happy. C, i, a chief William Casey developed a top secret plan with president reagans blessing the vienna, the spy capital of the world. The throughout the to ship in fargo, i was your typical black market dealer. Its in the whole school, especially mainframe computers, measuring instruments for nuclear physics, and in fact, really delicate things that less develop states and couldnt make themselves since then taking cold. And shell get training with the east german state security, which is where i was recruited in google. And then of course, after a break, i worked in the soviet union, some policy published in the soviet, on your list, c. I a watched me for over a year and yeah, until one day when the time was right and the stock is so they decided to intervene to tell them to. So they said i had a choice. I could stay till at least 20 years in prison, or i work for that big news or the do up at this tunes. The c i a supply the black market specialist with expensive high tech goods who sailed to the soviet union was banned. In the soviet to move on to the soviet union reacted as expected. Theres a glitch, some g r u people suddenly appeared in the hotel. Seemed to say, hey, im 2 gentlemen politely asked me to answer a few questions to up. This is fixed and that turned into a 6 hour interrogation because the tech equipment had clearly been tampered with on it for gift as well. Of mine, everything was actually compromised. I found out then that the 1st big computerized sold a huge thing, made up of cabinetry. Theyve had caught fire so, so these are getting in the, the, ive so far you all get funded reagan and his, he, i mean we have their site set on the siberian pipelines is the new website because you think im convinced that a broad variety of technology was being delivered to the product to theres a famous case of a Gas Pipelines that was damaged by a contaminated unit brought in from the west to at least the Software Running one of the largest Gas Pipelines in the soviet union when haywire in june, 1982, just as the ca plans, the result was a huge explosion. The hunch was then on for the sabbath tours, theyve got kind of, theres no question if they caught me, id be dead. It was that simple. I was very, very happy. I survived. The surviving was the greatest, try them for my life sleeves. I survived, a russian engineer was arrested on the moscow street in 1985, a c i a spy. He was leader executed in the pipeline soon repaired. Business as usual. Vladimir putin was at the time being trained as a k g b agent. He was sent to east germany in 1985. Somebody ask him, what did you do and dressed. And he said, you know, he was a k g b case officer, and he said i was working with people of documents who just became a regular k g b presence and dressed. And he regularly showed up at meetings of the east German Security service besides the stalls. The agents often photographed putting the is a case of this that you have to be able to manipulate people. You have to understand peoples weaknesses, as well as the strengths and add to that the fact that he does it, judo champions, youre trying sense even if your opponent is physically stronger than you, one of the other weaknesses, how can you distract them . So i think if you put those 2 things together, um he probably has been quite good or manipulating people, making them feel, but theyre very important and appealing to their own vanity. Starcy officer mathias, bonnie was also active and dressed and he previously spied in the west. I had a close colleague in berlin at the time. I was in moscow and he have access to the styles the files and discovered the bone. It had indeed been with this policy we were interviewing people who knew both of them and they were able to place them in dressed and in the late eightys and said that they were working together. What we were able to ascertain was that the k g b was actually trying to recruit styles. The agents in dressed in a stuff as the id became part of clintons disguise. And by 1989, he was looking beyond the preservation of communism. It was very, very important for establishing the business careers of a lot of different people. And also i probably allowing the kids to be to preserve the lot of its network key and that styles the chief areas smith got just a year earlier put in represented a powerful state that was keeping east germany afloat with its cheap oil and gas. Natural gas wants to very closely related to quality of life, to worse to the probation off, you know, services allowing schools to function on hospitals for functions. And i have used the word glue you could describe that the chief energy that the soviet union is providing to its Eastern European satellites, basically as a subsidy to keep their economies going to have to keep them tightened associated with it. So the russia was then using oil and gas as a disciplinary measure within the warsaw pact. When ever there was conflict. Im thinking of the uprisings in hungary bush and 68 the checklist with lucky on one, often the young executive fish and mattress. I must go sent the tanks to check us a gotcha and supplied less oil and gas. One gas using oil and gas dependencies as a political weapon, was par for the course. And the warsaw pact, all they would offer very Favorable Oil and gas contractors. And in return, they of course, expected loyalty to soviet interest as of today, asking about some of the other from and pressing i would be out of exploding these dependencies in foreign and Security Policy has a long precedent for this out. Its going to take a task of a, as in the lesson long for the elf, how to in 1989 east germany was on the brink of collapse. But the soviet union continued to demand high prices for oil and gas, which the country could barely pay. Its a deeper into crisis associates with getting all this money from europeans. And they was seeing what the real price of energy in europe was. And i saw with our economies and doing great why were giving away our energy to these people. Agents like find them, youre put in and mathias minus how to adapt. The system they worked under was ending bonnie landed on his feet, moments after the berlin wall crumbled. Gets past him. Anything house, for example, how quickly vondik was fired by dressing up. I mean they identified him very, very early on. Someone who would be extremely useful for the building up their business in eastern europe. And in russia, former agent Vladimir Putin, repositioned himself as the statue of the key jeebies founder was torn down in moscow. Fits in his destroy, done very well in interviews. How he came back from dressed and he didnt know what to do and he was, was moonlighting as a taxi driver on the streets of saint petersburg. You find these added up in the mans office in some petersburg. Weve made some check must have checked with a reformer. He was also a corrupt. So you had a period they were put in was in charge of fine economic contracts. And thats, i think when he became begun to make money, violence followed the collapse of the soviet union. The 1990s was a terrible time. It was just people trying to survive. Well, the key thing was protection. What the russians called cri show, which is rings, and sometimes grief can be someone in the criminal organization. Sometimes its a someone in the government, in the ninetys often not as much the same person. Former size, the agent varnish, established context and st. Petersburg for jazz and their bunk, both and local government and a new company gas problem. They needed someone in the some pieces the government who could look off to them and open doors for them. That was why the, the sort of pitching vondik connection was so interesting because essentially putin was phonics collection. He was his roof boots and became more and more influential over the years, receiving dignitaries and growing his network. Meanwhile the remnants of the soviet union were being bartered away, claims were being state the was the sort of time of no he. Ready bought wild capitalism, it was a wild east, essentially rush and Natural Resources was passed to small coterie of all the dogs. So sort of extremely rich individuals in high leaves dubious Product Organization options was a really, really rough ride for the western investors. But potential rewards with just so vast that they just kept the homes in the game. While the russian people scoured and p supermarkets for food and lived for freezing winters. International investors were bringing up cheap russian companies, especially those in raw materials. One object of speculation was the former gas mini