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They are all connected, of course.

To begin with, understand that Europe does not produce enough energy to supply its energy needs. For this reason it is an extremely large, profitable, and desirable "energy market" for the energy producers of the world. Second, note that selling energy to Europe is not just about moving product and making profit, but also about financial power. Energy is what backs money in our current financial system, the "petrodollar." The petrodollar is simple - the USA ensures that all energy sales in the world are conducted in USD. They achieve this by ensuring, via their military and economic clout, that the piddling backwaters that produce the most energy have millitary protection so no one steals it from them. The US military also ensures no one steals YOUR OIL in shipment after you buy it. In exchange, the energy producers require buyers to pay in USD. Now, most of the world buys energy in huge amounts, which ensures an essentially endless demand for USD. Further, because every country has large amounts of USD for buying energy, it becomes the obvious currency for settling other purchases between countries. This is why the USD is the "reserve currency" - every country needs USD which means the USA can always borrow money and run endless deficit, and can control other countries by making it harder for them to get USD, choking their economy (see: Turkey).

It should now be clear why the USA wants to make sure that energy sold to the European market is coming from reliable producers who will follow the requirement to use USD. It also helps that the USA itself is a major energy producer and can directly handle much of the energy needs for Europe. Europe, unsurprisingly, does not love being America's bitch. Russia, in addition, is the least amenable major country to this whole USA-runs-everything-in-the-world program. Europe also has the second most useful international currency, the Euro, which Germany runs. This means that should the Germans and the Russians get too cozy there is risk that the large European energy market will revert to Euros for payment instead of USD, which weakens America's financial dominance and potentially destroys its economy if other countries follow suit (they will). Most of the wars in your lifetime were over this issue - it is not trivial and globohomo has shown itself to be very happy to destroy a country and kill its leadership over these matters.

Now, enter Ukraine. Russia is presently the main non-EU supplier of energy to Europe, particularly Germany. This is because they have gas and are close by and have pipelines that can deliver it quickly and reliably. This means the energy is MUCH cheaper than other options. Russia's trouble is that, due to previous USSR borders, the pipelines they use to send gas to Europe run through Ukraine. Ukraine (and also Poland) get a cut for letting the gas pass-through. They also maintain the pipelines and are a partner in that delivery. Ukraine is a mess, however, and does both a bad job maintaining the pipelines and also at paying the bills. Ukraine knows Russia does not want to shut off delivery to markets beyond Ukraine and it takes advantage for decades now by finking on its part of the deal whenever it likes, and trying to get a better deal. For Russia, this means gas delivery to Europe is unreliable, which makes them a bad Service Provider, since Germans are pretty big on efficiency and precision and reliability.

To resolve this problem, Germany and Russia had an idea. They would drop a new pipeline over the north, under the sea, that went directly from Russia to Germany, cutting out the middlemen. This is expensive so they decided to make it twice as big. This new project, Nord-Stream 2, is now physically complete and ready to go once Germany gives it the OK. USA has tried to stop it for years and now it is the last chance to do so. The problem for USA is that Germany and Russia have more than just a simple gas deal. What will now happen is Russia will send huge quantities of gas to Germany over a reliable, direct pipeline. Russia gets guaranteed payment from one extremely reliable customer (Germany) and Germany gets more gas than they need. This enables Germany to become the BROKER for Europe - they buy the gas from Russia and THEY sell it to the other countries around, and deal with their payments and such. This makes Germany money, ensures it has reliable energy supply in the future, and gives it more political and financial leverage over its EU neighbors. Russia in exchange gets a friendly, happy Germany next door that has the ability to put pesky neighbors like Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine on a leash on Russia's behalf, and also a reliable and predictable revenue stream for their gas. This is a match made in heaven, which is why they spent $10 billion building it, ignoring USA's screeching the whole way.

Ukraine, of course, is fucked in this deal. The USA has already used them as a bitch to try and instigate Russia and has been skimming its share off the gas profits, too. The main reason anyone in the West cares about Ukraine is because they are the gas station and provide leverage to keep Russia in check. Once Nord-Stream 2 goes live, Ukraine becomes irrelevant. For USA, this is also a problem becomes it prevents them from using Ukraine to control Russia internationally. There is also the concern that the Russiand and Germans will decide to settle their energy deals in Euros instead of USD, which can lead to OTHER imports between the two being settled in Euros. This greatly undermines the USD and damages USA's economic dominance. USA is used to running the world and does not want to see Europe and Russia come up a notch, so they are doing everything they can to get Nord-Stream 2 canceled. A major lever they use is climate change faggotry. Yep, that's what all of that is really about these past few years - controlling the energy market.

Russia's leader is strategically clever, so he has played this game effectively. The USA was working to prevent Nord-Stream 2 from being approved in Germany so Russia reminded them that if they were not going to be allowed to participate in the Western trade system by selling gas on the free market like anyone else, they'd have no reason to kowtow in other areas in order to stay in that trade system. As you saw this week, all USA can really do if Russia takes Ukrainian territory against American and European wishes is to kick them out of SWIFT, the major financial bloc of the world. Russia is only interested in being part of it so they can do things like Nord-Stream 2 and so they reminded America and Europe that if they are going to be financially excluded anyhow they might as well live it up. Putin is telling the USA that it's in THEIR interests to keep Russia "integrated" into the Western financial system. In response, the Biden government is attempting to negotiate a deal whereby the Russians can supply gas to Germany but only under terms the USA approves of - namely getting them to assure it stays in USD.

What ultimately happens is to be determined. A major factor is that Germany now has a new leader after 16 years and he is less reliably in favor of the project than Merkel was, who understood it was a great deal for Germany and who had enough seniority and power to tell the USA to eat shit. Olaf may not have the ability to keep USA off his back, especially as USA is puppeteering a lot of domestic politics within Germany and the EU via "climate change" idiocy. There is also the fact that if Nord-Stream 2 is canceled, Germany will be over a barrel for energy in the next decade at least and providers like USA, UK, Netherlands, and Norway can jack up the price as high as they want.

So watch in the coming days/weeks for headlines about Germany "approving" or "blocking" Nord-Stream 2 from going online. Once the Germany regulators approve it the deal is done and the next moves will happen. If Germany blocks it, things can get even more interesting because Russia will be strongly incentivized to change course dramatically. If USA succeeds in blocking Nord-Stream 2, pandora's box is opening for a number of dramatic scenarios. If USA fails and Nord-Stream 2 is approved, the dominance of USD and the globohomo empire will take a significant blow, possibly one it cannot recover from. The third option is USA/Russia agree on terms, which can be very interesting as well. The USA is making a big ask and has no real leverage - what would the Russians want in exchange for appeasing the USA in this case? Whatever it is, they will probably get it, and I'm guessing it has a port in the Black Sea.