This article blends satire with commentary on factual events. Verifiable claims are sourced; satirical elements are in the writing style.
Cast your mind back to the simpler times of 2018.
At a NATO breakfast in Brussels that July, Donald Trump told the world that Germany was “a captive of Russia” and “totally controlled” by it, because of how much of its energy came from Moscow. (Al Jazeera, TIME) His target was Nord Stream 2, a $12 billion pipeline to carry Russian gas under the Baltic Sea straight into Germany.
Two months later he took the warning to the United Nations. Germany, he said, “will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.” The cameras caught the German delegation smirking. (CBS News, New York Sun)
To be fair, “totally” was a stretch: gas was about a quarter of Germany’s energy use. (CBS News) But roughly half of Germany’s gas came from Russia (Reuters via Washington Times), and on the big picture he was right. Write that down. It may not happen again.
The People Who Saw It Coming (and Were Also Ignored)
Trump wasn’t the first to warn. In 2006, Poland’s defence minister Radosław Sikorski compared Nord Stream to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the 1939 deal in which Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland. Germany was outraged. (Notes from Poland, Atlantic Council)
Russia had already shown how it used gas. It cut supplies through Ukraine in January 2006, and again in January 2009, when flows to Europe stopped completely for 13 days in the middle of winter. (Wikipedia, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies)
Europe’s response was to build more pipelines to Russia.
Meanwhile, the Man Who Signed the Deal…
Gerhard Schröder backed Nord Stream as German Chancellor in 2005. Soon after leaving office he became chairman of the Nord Stream shareholders’ committee. Later he chaired the board of Rosneft, Russia’s state oil company, and kept the job until 2022, when EU sanctions loomed. (Natural Gas World, Euronews)
In fairness to Schröder, nobody can say he didn’t believe in the project. He believed in it all the way to the bank.
How It Ended
Nord Stream 2 was finished in September 2021 and never switched on. Germany froze it on 22 February 2022, two days before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. (Washington Times) That September, both Nord Stream pipelines were blown up on the seabed. Who did it is still in dispute. (Kyiv Independent)
Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who as foreign minister had championed the policy, said in 2022: “My holding on to Nord Stream 2 was clearly a mistake.” (Kyiv Independent, Euronews)
So, a happy ending. Lesson learned. Nobody would ever do energy deals with Putin again.
Fast Forward to 2026
In October, the President of the United States announced a deal for Russia to ship 800,000 tons of diesel onto world markets, with a US Treasury licence to let it through. (Axios) The same week, he suggested Ukraine should get a new leader. (CNN)
Yes, that President. The one who stood at the UN and warned the world about relying on Russian energy.
The German delegation has not been reached for comment. Sources we invented say they’re still smirking, only now it’s for a different reason.
To be fair to Trump 2026, he’s also sold Europe $750 billion of American energy (AP via WJLA). So the plan is now complete: Europe depends on America for energy, and America is helping Russia sell its energy.
You might call it “captive.” In 2018, someone did.
Illustration: AI-generated satirical cartoon. Speech bubbles are satire, not quotes.
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