Putin's Pipeline Predicament

Mar 20, 2015 | Michael Haltzel, Antto Vihma, and Michael Mehling
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As Russia and Ukraine approach yet another confrontation over natural gas, the recent demise of Putin's flagship South Stream pipeline casts doubt on his strategic acumen. In December 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised even Gazprom's close business partners by announcing that Russia would abandon the South Stream pipeline project. South Stream was Putin's strategic flagship project, a controversial pipeline through the Black Sea to South-Eastern Europe, and while its commercial profitability had always seemed questionable, few observers doubted that it would proceed.