Fuel Fix: U.S., Russia fight over Europe’s energy future

The United States and Russia are once more locked in what could be a generation-defining conflict, and Europe is yet again the core battleground. But this Cold War reprise isn’t about military supremacy.

It’s about heat and electricity for tens of millions of Europeans. The points on the map aren’t troop deployments, tank battalions and missile silos but pipelines, ports and power plants.

As the Obama administration escalates economic sanctions on Russia and weighs military support to Ukraine, it also has revved up a less noticed but far broader campaign to wean Central and Eastern Europe off a deep reliance on Russian energy. Success, U.S. officials say, would mean finally “liberating” former Soviet states and satellites from decades of economic bullying by Moscow.

To that end, Washington is helping set up new natural gas pipelines and terminals in a region that depends on Russia for more than 70 percent of its energy needs. It is pushing American companies’ bids for nuclear plants and fracking exploration in Europe.

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