Rusland negeert Polen bij aanleg pijplijn voor levering gas aan West-Europa (en)

Russia has opted to press ahead with the construction of a major gas pipeline to Germany threatening similar projects in the region and compounding Moscow's diplomatic snub to Poland and Lithuania over Kaliningrad's anniversary celebrations.

President Vladimir Putin told chancellor Gerhard Schroder on Sunday (3 July) that construction of a €5 billion gas link running from St Petersburg under the Baltic Sea to the German town of Greifswald will begin this September.

The unit would pump 50-55 billion cubic feet of gas a year, putting in doubt earlier plans to build new Russian gas capacity running through Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus, under the Amber Project and Jamal-Europe schemes.

Mr Putin issued the news while hosting Mr Schroder and French leader Jacques Chirac at the 750th anniversary celebrations of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, with much backslapping and smiles on all sides.

His timing of the announcement added insult to injury for Poland and Lithuania which were already annoyed at being kept out of the festivities, as Kaliningrad borders both their countries but has no obvious links to Paris or Berlin.

Mr Putin said the celebrations were an exclusively Russian event and that it was "past understanding" that Warsaw and Vilnius should take offence, while Mr Chirac added that the meeting was a traditional tripartite get-together with no reasons for anybody to feel hard done by, Polish daily Rzeczpospolita reports.

But the Polish paper Gazeta Wyborcza also relayed Russian media reports that Moscow had calculated the move as punishment for Poland and Lithuania for their noisy support of Ukraine's Orange Revolution as well as their recent criticisms of Russia's Soviet-era politics.

Rzeczpospolita added that German, French and UK construction firms are set to benefit from the Baltic pipeline project.

In a separate incident, a corporate row between Russian gas giant Gazprom and its Ukrainian partner, Naftogaz, served to spotlight the EU's strong links with Russian gas suppliers.

Last week, Gazprom threatened to slash deliveries to Naftogaz over the disputed disappearance of gas reserves in the Ukraine, prompting Naftogaz to warn customers in Germany, Austria, Slovakia, the Czech republic, Bulgaria and Romania that export volumes might be at risk.

But Ukrainian energy experts assured western European media that exports to Europe would remain safe despite the simmering conflict, AFP writes.