(OTTAWA) Canada has revoked the permit to export turbines for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline after Russian President Vladimir Putin demonstrated that he had never intended to supply Europe with energy since that his country invaded Ukraine.
Ottawa circumvented its own sanctions against Russia last July by granting the two-year permit that allowed six turbines to travel back and forth between the two continents for two years for maintenance — a pass -right which had angered President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A turbine that was stuck at the Siemens plant in Montreal had therefore been shipped to Germany, and it has not moved since. As for the gas pipeline that it was supposed to help run, it remains inoperative after being damaged by an act of “sabotage” which the Kremlin was deemed to be responsible for.
The explosion in question dates back to last September. On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and her colleague Jonathan Wilkinson at Natural Resources signaled that they had seen enough when they announced the cancellation of the permit.
” Given that [Vladimir] Putin was forced to demonstrate that it was never his intention to return Nord Stream 1 to service and that the pipeline is unusable, the Government of Canada has decided to revoke the permit,” they wrote in a joint statement released at the end. of day.
Canada makes this decision recognizing that the circumstances surrounding the granting of the permit have changed. The license no longer fulfills the function intended for it. This decision was taken in close cooperation with our Ukrainian, German and European allies.
Excerpt from a press release from ministers Mélanie Joly and Jonathan Wilkinson
Ukraine’s ambassador to Canada, Yulia Kovaliv, called for the permit to be revoked last August. She pleaded that the demonstration had been made that the master of the Kremlin was bluffing, even if the Ukrainians already knew it.
The Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline is a 1200 km pipeline that connects Russia to Germany.
Moscow had pleaded last summer that in the absence of the turbine which was taken from Canada under the sanctions regime, gas deliveries would suffer. The Canadian government bowed under pressure from Germany, much to Ukraine’s displeasure.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland announced in Paris on Tuesday that Canada would transfer $115 million in tariff revenue collected on imports from Russia and Belarus to repair Kyiv’s power grid, which the Kremlin is bombarding as weather cold sets in.