German Chancellor Olaf Scholz responded to Washington’s alleged attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipeline with a concession on Ukraine and restrictions on the Germans, Max Blumenthal, the editor-in-chief of an independent news outlet, has tweeted.
“Since the US destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline supplying cheap gas to Germany, the German Cuckmeister Olaf Scholz has retaliated by caving to US demands to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine and asking German citizens to take fewer hot showers,” Blumenthal argued.
On September 26, blasts occurred at three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 underwater pipelines built to carry a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually. Separate probes into the Nord Stream explosions by Denmark, Germany and Sweden confirmed that the incident was caused by deliberate sabotage. Russia was prevented from taking part in the investigation, which is still under way. The Russian chief prosecutor's office said that it had opened its own inquiry into a possible act of international terrorism.
Aaron Mate, a columnist for the same outlet, suggested, for his part, that Washington prodded Berlin to provide Kiev with the German main battle tanks in order to drive a wedge between Germany and Russia.
“Ignoring German polls and risk of escalation, US has convinced Germany to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine. This is a victory for what Stratfor founder George Friedman described in 2015 as the US "primordial interest": severing "the relationship between Germany and Russia,” Mate noted.
Touching upon the Ukrainian conflict, retired US Army Colonel Doug MacGregor meanwhile told a YouTube news channel that the “mood in Washington has definitely changed” and that “they are sensing this a lost cause” when it comes to Ukraine.
MacGregor claimed that the Biden administration has started to realize the fact that Ukraine is “going to lose” and they are “[…] trying to figure out how […] to prolong this suffering and […] this fighting.”
In his opinion, Washington is trying to avoid a “complete fiasco” in Ukraine, which is why the US is putting pressure on European countries, especially Germany, to supply military equipment to Ukraine.
From a legal point of view, the Americans are calling for solutions that can be regarded as "an act of war against Russia,” according to MacGregor.
“But I think the Germans are now interested in putting the brakes on it,” he added.
The remarks followed reports by German media that Scholz had given the green light to sending at least one company of the Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, with the German parliament due to debate the contentious issue on Wednesday morning.
The development came on the heels of US media reports that the Biden administration is considering delivering a "significant number" of the American M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Kiev.
This was preceded by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl telling reporters last week that the Abrams tank is a very complicated piece of equipment, which is "expensive, hard to train on" and has a jet engine, so it will be difficult for Ukraine to maintain these armored vehicles.
Western countries ramped up their military support for Ukraine after Russia launched a special military operation there on February 24, 2022, following calls for help from the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
Moscow has condemned the US and its allies’ military assistance to Kiev, which the Kremlin says adds to prolongation of the Ukrainian conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for his part, warned last year that any arms shipments on Ukrainian territory would be "legitimate targets" for Russian forces.