The plan to bring gas to more than 18,000 houses and 84 boiler houses through the construction of 24 gas pipelines with a total length of 1,411 km in Karelia from 2021 to 2025 received approval in December 2020. The expected investment volume was nearly 52 billion rubles.
The head of the region, Artur Parfenchikov, stated that the gasification of Karelia is of utmost importance. Successfully addressing this issue is expected to enhance the region's investment appeal, positively impact the economy of the republic, and significantly improve the situation in the housing and communal services sector.
Despite the significant decrease in gas exports to Europe, gasifying Karelia might appear to be a profitable solution. Gazprom reduced its gas exports to foreign countries by 33.1% to 71.9 billion cubic meters from January 1 to July 15, 2022, compared to the same period last year. However, the gas supply specifics indicate that a decrease in pipeline workload below critical levels may lead to emergencies and breakdowns.
The decline in gas supplies to Europe can be attributed to several reasons: lack of support for the start of the CBO from Western countries, the onset of a new Cold War, increased sanctions pressure, and the Kremlin's use of gas as a last resort (nuclear weapons can be used as a threat, but not a real tool of war).
What can be witnessed in Karelia? The world's largest gas flame can now be observed, even from Finland:
According to the Finnish publication Yle, residents living near the Russian border have been witnessing the burning of a massive torch near Gazprom Concern's Portovaya compressor station. Gazprom is simply burning off “extra” gas due to lack of storage space.
Simultaneously, the gasification efforts in Karelia have nearly come to a halt. Officials attribute this to the sanctions regime and technological challenges. Karelia remains one of the most challenging regions in Russia in terms of social discontent, increasing crime rates, declining incomes, and rising mortality.
Meanwhile, Finland, which was historically connected to Karelia less than a century ago, is situated nearby. It is a country with high social standards and a robust economy, but it is also on the verge of becoming a NATO member (de facto it already is, though several legal points still need approval). Attempting to portray Finland negatively to the region's residents (in light of burning “unnecessary gas”) is not the most successful maneuver by the Moscow authorities.
Amidst these circumstances, it's not surprising to see discussions about “the return of Karelia to Finland” gaining momentum. The latest edition of the separatist newspaper “Finnish Karelia” caught the attention of Ksenia Sobchak and her Telegram channel “Bloody Lady,” despite being taken down shortly after posting. Nonetheless, it managed to garner hundreds of thousands of views and shares on other major Telegram channels.
Is Karelia being separatized? In full swing. But who pushes this process forward? All Finns can be accused of is that they deal with their economic issues, thereby creating a colossal contrast with the almost poor Karelia. Finns also do not have oil and gas, like Kazakhstan, Russian sanctions are imposed against them, but this only strengthens the separatization and Finnishization of the region. And Finland does not have to do anything hostile to Russia for this.
Coincidently, Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Petrozavodsk, where the issue of “answer to Finland’s accession to NATO” was discussed, was the launch of a giant torch on the border with the same Finland. Finns, who are quite sensitive to both the economy and natural resources, still see with their own eyes how simply colossal volumes of “unnecessary gas” are burned, throwing combustion products into the atmosphere without any filters.
But the same is seen by the residents of the region, who are not given this gas even for money. Is it worth explaining how this affects the moods of even the most patriotic of them? Both free gas combustion and the refusal of gasification of Karelia explain the same reason: “The West is waging war against Russia.”
But this argument does not work in Karelia, because ties with Finland are extremely close. And anyone, but you definitely can’t suspect Finns of “aggressive politics.” Moscow’s policy towards Karelia is absolutely and completely detached from local realities, which makes all actions and movements not just empty, but harmful and dangerous.
Without a revision of Karelia’s regional policy and relations with the federal center, it will only get worse. There is no external force for “Karelian separatism” – it’s just a response of the population to miscalculations in domestic policy. And even today this “separatism” is conditional – there are no real movements to “separate” from Russia, much less to join Finland.
But both the “war on world terrorism” in the early 2000s became the main driver of the rapid surge in this very international terrorism, so the “fight against Finnish separatisms” creates this very “separatism.” It remains to understand when it will be possible to notice it in Moscow.
