LUBMIN, Germany – As Heidi Moritz stood by the window and looked out over the vast gray landscape of the Baltic Sea stretching to the horizon, she couldn’t make out the giant vortex of methane bubbling from the leak. in two sabotaged gas pipelines from Russia far offshore.
But she knows it’s there.
Moritz, 74, owner of a hotel in the tiny village of Lubmin on Germany’s north coast, said: “It’s horrifying, the fate of people is closely linked with the fate of the pipes. , both landed here. “This brought war to our doorstep. Where will it all end?”
Seven months after Russia’s war with Ukraine, undersea explosions that damaged what was once Russia’s main source of gas supplies to Germany and much of Europe have raised levels of anxiety and fear among people. Europe was already boiling.
Home to two pipelines that deliver gas directly from Russia, Lubmin was once a symbol of energy security. Nord Stream 1 used to transport nearly 60 billion cubic meters of natural gas each year to keep Europe’s largest economy going. And Nord Stream 2 is built to increase that traffic.
Since then, the pipelines have embodied Europe’s reliance on Russian gas – and the continent’s frantic and painful attempt to detox it.
It will always be a tense winter, with worries about energy supplies and prices testing social peace on a continent that has barely recovered from pandemic-related economic hardship. coronavirus. European leaders have been scrambling for months to fill their gas storage facilities, and some are now announcing price caps to protect people and businesses from soaring energy costs.
But the recent attack off the coast of Western Europe added another pervasive threat to a growing array of concerns, from total blackouts to nuclear war. It hasn’t been established yet that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, who last week issued a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons if pushed too far, is behind the pipeline sabotage. The attack, however, was a reminder of the unpredictability of a war fought on many fronts and, perceived by many Germans, at least moving closer.
“War is near and people are feeling very vulnerable,” said Matthias Quent, a professor of sociology at Magdeburg University of Applied Sciences and an expert on the right. “This is the first time this type of pipeline attack has happened here. We have seen such attacks in the Middle East but never in Europe.”
The big question, officials and analysts say, is whether public support in Europe for Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia has so far remained steadfast and unyielding. end, in danger of disintegrating or not.
“The greater the fear, the more cracks appear,” says Mr. Quent. “There has been a narrative in parts of society that we are sacrificing our prosperity for this war. People blame high energy prices on sanctions. Even solidarity with Ukrainian refugees seems less solid.”
In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat who on Thursday announced a $200 billion program to cap gas and electricity prices, acknowledged that strain.
“When we decided on our sanctions regimes, we always followed the idea that they should hurt Russia and give them the idea not to continue what they are doing,” Scholz said in an interview. last week. “But we won’t decide on sanctions that are hurting our countries more than others.”
Other leaders, worried after won the recent election of a far-right candidate in Italy and the interests of a neo-Nazi party in Sweden, are more obvious.
“If this war does not end, we will face really difficult times in Europe in the coming years,” Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, a conservative, said in an interview. . “Our democracies will suffer.”
Some polls are beginning to note a shift in attitudes. In Germany, after Putin announced the mobilization and talked about nuclear weapons, war has become high on the list of people’s concerns after falling in recent months. While three-quarters of Germans say their government should continue to support Ukraine despite rising energy prices, only a quarter of Germans believes that the Ukrainians can repel the Russian army even further. Only four out of ten people believe that the Ukrainian army can achieve a major military success.
Protests against rising energy prices – as well as against sanctions against Russia that many see as causing the current economic hardship – have grown in number and scale in different regions of the world. Different corners of Europe.
Tens of thousands of people gathered last week in Prague, the Czech capital, for the second such march in a month, and thousands more took to the streets in two dozen cities in formerly Communist East Germany . One in three people from that part of Germany wants to drop all sanctions against Russia, according to a poll taken last monthtwice as much as in the formerly more populous western region.
In the village of Lubmin, with a population of just 2,000, about 4,000 protesters gathered last Sunday with banners demanding “end sanctions” and “reopen” the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. completed, that Germany blocked after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. It was damaged in attacks last week, as was Nord Stream 1.
Tensions rose briefly when several Ukrainian refugees held up banners calling Russia “a terrorist state”. There are few refugees in the area, but hushed comments about “expensive cell phones” and “branded clothes – much better than ours” can be heard in the supermarket aisles. town and on buses today.
Ms Moritz, who runs the only beachfront hotel in the village with her daughter, did not attend the march but said she sympathized with the protesters. Like most here, she wants Russian gas to keep flowing at the moment and opposes arms deliveries to Ukraine, saying they only prolong the war.
“They say they are defending our freedom in Ukraine,” she said. “Who believes that? This is not our war. We are just pawns in this.”
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Ms. Moritz had plans to expand her hotel. Now she may have to close it. She cheered up when she talked about it.
Rising heating costs could make winter rentals banned, she said. Her fizzy drink supplier fears default because of higher gas prices. The bakers in the surrounding villages were all worried that they might not survive the winter.
“It’s like we’re going into a really dark period and people won’t just shut up,” said a taxi driver from a nearby town, who goes by the name Sunny, who says she pays around $200. euros per refueling. tank. “There could be unrest, maybe even a revolution.”
Marco Hanke, who runs a small family heating and plumbing business in Lubmin, has seen heat pump orders soar as people worry about gas shortages. But he couldn’t meet the demand because he couldn’t buy enough units from the suppliers.
Like others here, he blamed sanctions on Russia.
“We have a feeling that those who impose sanctions will be hit harder than those targeted by the sanctions,” he said. Ironically, Mr. Hanke said recent leaks in the Nord Stream pipeline “made the situation worse”. Like many here, he had hoped that a diplomatic solution to the conflict would eventually lead to a new influx of Russian gas.
With that capacity dwindling, and as they themselves became targets in an amorphous war, the people of Lubmin emerged as a symbol of European vulnerability.
“Talk to anyone around here,” said Ms. Moritz. “What we feel is naked fear.”
Christopher F. Schuetze Reporting contributions from Berlin.
