# Gazprom Gazprom is Russia's state-controlled natural-gas giant and one of the world's largest gas companies, majority-controlled by the Russian government. It is Moscow's primary energy lever over Europe and the owner-operator of the Nord Stream Baltic pipelines, and it appears in [[The Octopus]] frame as the gas counterpart to [[Rosneft]] in the Big-Oil-meets-Russia strand. ## Role Before 2022 Gazprom supplied roughly 45% of EU natural-gas imports, giving Moscow enormous geopolitical leverage. Its Nord Stream 2 pipeline, completed in 2021, was designed to roughly double direct Russia-to-Germany capacity and bypass Ukraine; Germany suspended its certification in February 2022, and three of the four Nord Stream lines were sabotaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. Sanctions and the loss of the European market then sharply cut Gazprom's exports. ## The Octopus reading [[The Octopus]] essay names Gazprom alongside [[Rosneft]] as the Russian energy firms whose deals "may have advanced the policy" [[Robert McFarlane]] is said to have advocated -- the climate-skeptic, pro-Arctic-oil, pro-Russia energy alignment Troy places at the heart of the 2016 nexus. Gazprom embodies the "energy as geopolitical weapon" logic of the strand. ## Epistemic status Gazprom's state control, its European leverage, and the Nord Stream events are documented. Its role in the Octopus frame is illustrative of an energy-as-power logic rather than evidence of a specific conspiracy. ## See also - [[The Octopus]] - [[Rosneft]] - [[Robert McFarlane]]