Vladimir Putin's former spy and close friend is relaunching the reboot of Russia's Node Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the support of US investors.
According to several people aware of the debate, the trading efforts were the brainchild of Matthias Warnig, a former East German stasy officer who ran the parent company of Node Stream 2 for Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom until 2023.
Warnig's plans included outreach to the Trump team through American businessmen as part of a back-channel effort to mediate the end of the war in Ukraine, while furthering the economic ties between the US and Russia.
According to Washington officials, several prominent Trump administration figures recognize initiatives to introduce US investors and consider them part of a push to rebuild ties with Moscow.
There were several expressions of interest, but one of the US-led investors consortiums has created an outline of the post-facing contract with Gazprom, according to one person with first-hand knowledge of the talks that refused to disclose the identity of future investors.
High-ranking EU officials have noticed the Nord Stream 2 debate in recent weeks. Some officials with knowledge of the debate say that leaders from several European countries are concerned and debating the issue.
One of the two pipelines in Nord Stream 2 was blown up in a sabotage attack in September 2022, destroying both pipelines in sister project Nord Stream 1.
The latest plan said, in theory, would bring the US an unparalleled shaking over energy supply to Europe after EU countries moved to end Russian gas reliance in the aftermath of the invasion.
However, the obstacles are quite significant. The US must agree to lift sanctions against Russia and Russia resume sales that were blocked during the war.
“The US would say, 'Well, there are trustworthy Americans in the middle of it, so now Russia can be trusted.” US investors will collect “money for anything,” he added.
The talks compete to seal the peace agreement through bilateral discussions with Russia, where the Trump administration excluded Europe and Ukraine, and to seal the peace agreement with Moscow, as US detente smokes European capitals that could threaten the continent. Trump has pledged deeper economic cooperation with Russia if he can reach a peace agreement.
Russian President Putin speaks of the economic benefits the US says can reap with the Kremlin if a settlement occurs in Ukraine, claiming that “several companies” are already touching on potential deals.
Nord Stream 2 AG, the pipeline's Swiss-based parent company, had an exceptional stay in bankruptcy proceedings by at least four months in January.
According to compiled court documents, Gazprom, a shareholder of Nord Stream 2, argued that, similar to the February 2025 German election, “can have significant consequences on the situation in Nord Stream 2.” The submission pointed out “complex geopolitical issues” and the sanctions regime.
Walnig told the Financial Times that he “is not involved in discussions with American politicians or business representatives,” adding that he “added to follow the rules in this regard.” [as a] A licensed person in the United States.”
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no information on consultations on the pipeline. Gazprom declined to comment. The lawyer representing NodeStream 2 in the Swiss bankruptcy case and the custodian appointed by the court of Nord Steam 2 creditors did not respond to an FT request for comment.
Warnig, 69, said he became Putin's best friend after establishing the office of lender Dresner Bank in St. Petersburg in the 1990s.
The two got so close that Putin asked Warnig to put his daughter in the Radarmark banker's house when his mother was seriously injured in a car accident.
According to a 2023 interview with former Stasi Officer of Die Zeit, Putin, who speaks fluent German, skied with Warnig's children in Davos and invited them to his father's funeral.
However, Warnig called Putin's invasion a “unexplainable mistake” and resigned from the board of directors of two Kremlin-run energy companies in 2022 after the war in Ukraine.
He told Dai Zeit that he made a personal appeal to Putin to end the invasion in a few months, and told him that the Russian president is so isolated that he is “I am the only person who can still say anything to him.”
Warnig left Nord Stream 2 AG, a Russian-owned company that manages the pipeline in 2023, but Gazprom's CEO Alexei Miller told Die Zeit that he was guaranteed to cover the costs in the hopes of saving what was left.
Joe Biden's US administration approved Warnig and Nord Stream 2 AG in 2022. Biden officials showed little interest in the proposal to buy Nord Stream 2 from Stephen Lynch, an American businessman who worked in Russia last year.
Other potential investors have moved forward since Lynch first expressed interest. Those who know first-hand about Gazprom's discussions said the high-level consultations were with a US-led consortium, different from Lynch.
Lynch declined to comment when contacted by Fort. He applied for a license from the US Treasury Department's Foreign Assets Control Office for the Nodestream proposal. Lynch was previously granted to bid for a former Swiss subsidiary of Russian lender Sberbank, authorized in 2022.
Trump was frankly said in his criticism of the pipeline during his first term as president. It has become a symbol of those who relied too much on Russian gas and blamed Germany and Europe to support the funding of Moscow's military machinery.
But some of Trump's teams have seen the pipeline from Russia's Wieborg in the Gulf of Finland to Greatwald on Germany's Baltic coast, according to government officials, as strategic assets that can be used in peace negotiations in Ukraine.
Nord Stream 2's complex ownership structure identifies serious potential obstacles to any investment.
Nord Stream 2 is 100% owned by Gazprom. However, five European energy companies — Shell, Uniper, OMV, Engie and Wintershoull — collectively provide about half of the $11 billion construction costs through loans. All five European companies have amortized these obligations.
In 2022, the German government pulled out a plug for the Nord Stream 2 licensing procedure and did not issue the necessary documents to operate it.
Pipeline ownership could theoretically be given to investors to control the flow of Russian gas to Europe, a key market for US liquefied natural gas exports shipped to the Atlantic Ocean of tankers.
However, former US officials and Western businessmen with experience investing in Russia said that Trump and Putin's sign-offs alone were not enough to get Node Stream 2 to run.
“You can't imagine a board of directors of a major US company saying, 'Hey, let's go back to the Russian market and go back.” Russians know this too. They saw these vibrations in American policy,” said a former U.S. official.
“There are still sanctions in Europe and Germany will cause a major rift by signing up for Nordstream rehabilitation. Anything like that is far away.”
Additional reports: Olaf Stobeck of Frankfurt, Jamie Smith of New York, James Fontanella Kahn, Laura Pitel and Courtney Weaver of Berlin, Alex Rogers of Washington, Alex Kinder of San Francisco, Malcolm Moore of London
Mapping by Cleeve Jones
