Robert Amsterdam

It is an infrequently discussed and uncomfortable topic: Do Vladimir Putin's former Cold War colleagues in the East German Stasi benefit from their proximity to the outgoing Russian president in their new roles atop private enterprises? Is the future of German and European energy security completely in the hands of suspicious ex-spies?

The issue first surfaced from an investigative report from the Wall Street Journal several years ago, which found that the German banking executive, Matthias Warnig of Dresdner Kleinwort, had had a close relationship with Vladimir Putin during his KGB assignment to East Germany when he worked as an agent for the dreaded Stasi secret police. In more recent years, Warnig has guided the bank he heads up into a very close relationship with Gazprom, and has even taken up a post atop the board of the Nord Stream pipeline project - along with Putin's hired ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a man known for consistently being "on the wrong side of history." Warnig's Dresdner bank also assisted the Russian government in what we on the Yukos defense team would later refer to as a massive asset laundering operation, giving an artificially low valuation to the Yuganskneftegaz refining company before the illegal auction to a government owned company (Rosneft).

Now the Stasi connection to Gazprom is unraveling further and further. Today Reuters has picked up on a story from Die Welt about a new investigation being opened by Cologne prosecutors against Felix Strehober, a high placed executive of Gazprom Germania - the gas giant's subsidiary in Germany - into possible perjury regarding his past employment with the Stasi. Apparently Die Welt got hold of a long list of informal employees of the Stasi dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, which may also include a top manager of Gazprom Germania, Hans-Uve Kreher, according to one report.

More information is forthcoming on this breaking Stasi-Gazprom scandal, and we hope to soon offer some exclusive translations from the German press. Stay tuned.