A former spy and close friend of Vladimir Putin has been engineering a restart of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the backing of US investors, a once unthinkable move that shows the breadth of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow.
The efforts on a deal, according to several people aware of the discussions, were the brainchild of Matthias Warnig, an ex-Stasi officer in East Germany who until 2023 ran Nord Stream 2’s parent company for the Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom.
Warnig’s plan involved outreach to the Trump team through US businessmen, the people said, as part of back-channel efforts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine while deepening economic ties between the US and Russia.
您已阅读9%（719字），剩余91%（7297字）包含更多重要信息，订阅以继续探索完整内容，并享受更多专属服务。