Trumps energy power play imperils Russia-Turkey ties

President Volodymyr Zelenskyannounced last month that Ukraine will import American liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Greece via the “Vertical Gas Corridor” pipeline.

The project complementsPoland’s joint LNG plans with the US and to a lesser extent, Croatia’s to lay the basis for American LNG to eventually completely replace Russian gas in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Although US LNG is much more expensive, policymakers on the continent are going along with this on energy security pretexts, but US pressure has likely played a major role.

The US’s latest energy power play could also end Russia’s Turkish gas hub plans, which wereannounced in late 2022 after talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recip Tayyip Erdogan.

Russia wouldn’t just lose tens of billions of dollars of annual revenue if the US’s plans succeed, but tensions with Turkey might become unmanageable if the complex energy interdependence that has tied them together till now is broken, which could in turn destabilize the South Caucasus and Central Asia.

Bloomberg reported last June that Russia-Turkey hub plans had been shelved due to technical difficulties in supplying CEE from Turkey and bilateral disagreements. Neither side confirmed or denied the report, but now that the US has captured more of the CEE market through the “Vertical Gas Corridor” pipeline, the odds of the Russia-Turkey hub ever being built have declined.

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou wrote aninsightful post on X about this, which importantly noted that the “Eastern Mediterranean (Israel and Cyprus) is watching the start of this vertical corridor closely as it can be utilized to sell future EastMed gas into Europe.”

The “EastMed” refers to the proposed underwater pipeline of the same name for exportingIsrael’s enormous offshore gas reserves to the European Union. Its completion would likely completely eliminate the need for Russian gas in CEE when combined with US LNG.

Reuters reported last month that “Turkey’s gas shift threatens Russia and Iran’s last big European market”, which drew attention to how increased domestic production and LNG imports could greatly reduce Turkey’s future need for Russian gas via the TurkStream pipeline.

US President Donald Trump’sthreatened sanctions, including tariffs as high as 500%,on states that continue to import Russian energy without credible plans to wean themselves off of it, could accelerate this trend.

Russia wouldn’t just lose tens of billions of dollars’ worth of yearly revenue if all the American plans succeed, but tensions with Turkey might become unmanageable if the complex energy interdependence that tied them together until now is broken.

It’s already expected that Turkey willinject Western influence into Central Asia through thenew TRIPP corridor, thus posingchallenges along Russia’s entire southern periphery that will further complicate Turkish-Russian ties.

If their gas hub plans are essentially frozen or are officially canceled and Turkey begins importing less Russian gas from TurkStream, then Turkey might be emboldened to more aggressively challenge Russia on this front.

After all, the scenario of Russia cutting off gas exports in order to coerce concessions from Turkey during a crisis would be less effective, which could result in more hardline Turkish positions that raise the risk of conflict.

Russia could seek to revive its gas hub plans and reach an agreement with the US, perhaps as part of the grand deal on Ukraine that they aretrying to negotiate right now, including securing Russia’s gas market share in Turkey and possibly restoring part of it in CEE.

That would almost certainlyrequire Russia to compromise on some of its maximalist goals in Ukraine. Moscow can’t take Trump’s word as ironclad since future US presidents could rubbish any deal, but Russia would arguably be wise to consider this possibility instead of ruling it out.

Thisarticlewas first published on Andrew Korybko’s Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become an Andrew Korybko Newsletter subscriberhere.