The Lynch Pin to Europe: Energy & Intrigues

Nord Stream 2 is a feature project in garnering peace? Or is it a trap?

Patience is a virtue, I am told. The ability to wait out opponents, plan accordingly, and then strike with a deal that shocks and awes, yet solves a host of interconnected problems. Such wins come from great diplomacy: a rarity in the current day as most can’t see much further than irrational blind hatred and festering old harms that no one can ever solve adequately. Generally though, if one appeals to one’s pocketbook, keeps one’s bellies full, and the bread and circuses entertaining, one has made a decent enough deal for the time being. Sometimes though, the people presenting the plan are a little too good to be true. A little too conveniently timed.

Stephen Patrick Lynch is tied to rebooting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline – a deal revealed in November 2024 – by the Wall Street Journal. Now, in March 2025, this minor blip on the energy radar has amassed greater importance as the United States seeks to end the Russian Special Operation (or Russia-Ukraine War) even as coked-up Zelensky waffles and wavers worse the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

The interest in this deal has expanded – as Putin’s close ally and former head of Nord Stream 2 parent company, Matthias Warnig, is working with “US Investors” as The Financial Times wrote on March 2, 2025:

“A former spy and close friend of Vladimir Putin has been engineering a restart of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe with the backing of US investors, a once unthinkable move that shows the breadth of Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow.

The efforts on a deal, according to several people aware of the discussions, were the brainchild of Matthias Warnig, an ex-Stasi officer in East Germany who until 2023 ran Nord Stream 2’s parent company for the Kremlin-controlled gas giant Gazprom.”

These two players, Stephen Lynch and Matthais Warnig, are far more complex characters than the media will generally tell. Both appear deeply interwoven in multi-decades long intense (and now deadly battle) for the majority control of energy (and resources) flowing to Europe, coming from Ukraine, Russia, Middle East and across the pond from the United States.

Meet the Stasi Agent, Matthias Warnig

Putin was aKGB Agent based in East Germany in the 1970s. Vladimir is fluent in German – and like anyone of the Cold War Age – became close to certain people and localities while based in old East Germany. The Guardian wrote in August 2014, mere months after the US-backed coup in Ukraine:

It is no coincidence that Putin frequents the Café des Artistes. The reason for this is its owner and chef, Stefan Warnig. Putin knew him as a little boy, when he played with the Russian’s two daughters. After all, Stefan’s father, Matthias Warnig, is a very good friend of Putin’s.

The German who has the trust of the Russian president is 59 years old, with silver-grey hair. Most people believe that no one in Germany has as close and cordial a relationship with the Russian president as former chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But that is not entirely true.

Warnig’s acquaintance with Putin dates back further than Schröder’s, to a time before the Russian became one of the most powerful men in the world.…

The story of Matthias Warnig and Vladimir Putin is one of two men who have much in common. Both grew up in socialist states; both are former secret service agents. Their paths crossed by coincidence a quarter of a century ago….

The [2014] Ukraine crisis is having a particularly strong impact on Warnig. On 31 July, the EU put the most important shareholders of Bank Rossiya on the blacklist: the Putin confidants Yuri Kovalchuk and Nikolai Shamalov. Before that, the US froze assets of Bank Rossiya and made transactions with it illegal.

Warnig knows both bankers very well. Since 2003 he has been a member of the board of directors in the institution nicknamed the “bank of Putin’s friends”. Russia’s second-largest credit institution, VTB Bank, which has more than 100,000 employees, was also hit by the American-European measures. Warnig serves as a member of its supervisory board.

There are several other important posts occupied by the German, namely in the energy industry. Warnig is on the board of directors of Rosneft, the largest energy company in the world. Five percent of global oil production is controlled by Rosneft.…

Warnig is chairman of the board of directors at Rusal, the largest aluminum producer in the world. Putin reportedly personally gave Warnig this job to arbitrate in a conflict between the owners, all of them powerful oligarchs.

When it comes to gas exports, Warnig is managing director of Nord Stream AG, the company that operates the gas pipeline connecting Russia’s Vyborg with Germany’s Lubmin, via the Baltic sea. Here, the story comes full circle. The chairman of the shareholders’ committee is another friend of Putin: Gerhard Schröder.

Stephen Patrick Lynch, American by birth, Russian by operations

Lynch is much more of an American enigma. He is not a long-time Trump loyalist from anything publicly found on him. Lynch grew up in the New York City area, attending Boston College, and trotted off to Russia shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, evidently through the Peace Corps.

Lynch formed Monte Valle Partners while in Russia in the late 1990s, becoming closely familiar with the way the Russians did business while snatching up distressed assets. Lynch’s first big deal came, “in 2000, secured a 58-hectare plot near Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, later selling it in 2007.”

From that point, Lynch got deeply involved in Russian energy. Lynch garnered a $1.5 billion slice of Yukos Finance in August 2007, while the rest of the company landed in Rosneft’s hands. Thereafter, Lynch fought in court (representing himself) over the next dozen years (to 2019) tied to the legal particulars of the deal/auction/distressed asset sale. (He acquired Yukos assets at 20 cents on the dollar with substantial Dutch debt ($800M) that was in contention during those legal battles.)

Shortly after winning the court decision against the Russians et al, Lynch made his way back to the United States, settling in Miami Beach, Florida. One rumor noted his partnership with a man, and raising a child, was the instant problem, citing a Putin crackdown on such fringe relationships. One however is more skeptical given the duration of time spent in close and very successful proximity to the Russian seat of power: Moscow.

Echoes of Energy, LNG Stories Past

In 2019, around the time Lynch was coming back to America, another Ukrainian skirmish waged over exported LNG being piped through Poland to Ukraine and back to Europe. This deal involved Rick Perry, then the Department of Energy head for Trump, and two LNG shell companies started by William ‘Mardsen’ Miller, who tied directly back to the Hunter Biden’s laptop through February 2014 emails. This was discussed on this Substack.

Time Magazine did a 5,000 word write up Ukraine & export LNG in September 2020. Miller put in a bid on Magnolia LNG in April 2020, a very hot property in Hunter’s laptop (through CEFC) – then Miller backed out – handing the distressed property to Glenfarne Group for $2 million.

Glenfarne since has amassed interests in 3 U.S. LNG properties. Those properties likely have the Biden clan with a hidden stake of 10-20% in Glenfarne or some private agreement made through Greenberg & Traurig law firm (out of downtown Miami - POA made through July 31, 2023).

The Ukrainians cited in this Time article were adamant then on how they understood Trump and knew how to entice his administration from psychologically profiling him. Interesting how the Ukrainians view everyone as a threat or corruptible – a bit of projection? – and so their paranoia is easily played on by folks that have no interest in the Ukrainians’ long-term survival in one’s assessment.

Attorney Lee Wolosky’s Connections

Lee Wolosky worked in the Obama administration, knew Hunter, being tagged on Burisma-related emails, and also worked at Boies Schiller & Flexner with Hunter. Lee though is a real attorney. While Hunter just plays one on cocaine.

Wolosky interestingly represented Fiona Hill (a noted Trump hater), Sue Mi Terry (who SD NY Attorney Damian Williams popped after a decade-long monitoring of Terry’s communications with South Korean intelligence handlers) and is also “friends” with Stephen Patrick Lynch.

Lee Wolosky’s friendship with Lynch – as reported by various outlets – is not tied to any specific event or legal representation. The Council on Foreign Relations is the best linkage to such friendship. To quote United24Media:

Lee Wolosky, former advisor to President Biden and a partner at Jenner & Block [now Willkie Farr], described Lynch's proposal as aligned with US strategic interests. ‘The Biden administration and a future Trump administration should both see the value in this,’ Wolosky said, citing Lynch's expertise in navigating Russian markets.

Sue Mi’s husband is Russian-born Max Boot, famous Washington Post writer, and a Trump-hater as well. Max just published a book on Ronald Reagan in September 2024, just about 2 months after his wife was indicted. The book is lauded as a Top 10 book of 2024 by The New York Times.

Notable too, Wolosky, Hill, Terry, Boot and Lynch are ALL members of the Council of Foreign Relations. One hazards those internal communications would be telling.

Soo Kim has appeared alongside Sue Mi Terry in multiple podcasts/talks. Both are ex-CIA (is there really such a thing?), both are Korean peninsula analysts, polyglots (including Russian-speaking) and are equally attached to many of the same defense sect haunts located inside of the Washington, D.C. BLOB complex.

Soo Kim was Ryan Routh’s 2nd follow on Twitter, added after a small-time North Korean Correspondent. Some have made the claim that Kim followed Routh as well. One cannot confirm the validity of this claim.

Summary

Lynch magically appears back in the U.S. to buy into yet another Russian distressed asset. He dumps $500,000 into the Trump coffers the day after Trump gets nicked in the ear in Butler, PA.

Just days later, an ex-CIA gal Sue Mi Terry has the same lawyer that represented Fiona Hill in Trump’s first impeachment go around, regarding Ukraine, gets popped by the DOJ in Southern District of New York. Conveniently on FARA violations, much like Hunter Biden was accused and pardoned on. The amounts of incentives involved are miniscule - $37,000 to $50,000 known - which is weirdly pedestrian being married to a New York Times best-selling author and WaPo writer.

Sue Mi Terry also knows ex-CIA Soo Kim. Kim was followed on Twitter by the 2nd Trump attempted assassin, Ryan Welsey Routh, who was notably obsessed with North Korea and Ukrainian geopolitics. Evidently, Ryan had 17-18 cell phones in his possession when arrested. He camped out for 12 hours at the Mar-a-Lago golf course - and security/secret service never saw him during that time? DHS, one of Soo Kim’s resume bullet points, controls the United States Secret Service.

The CIA are most likely deeply involved in all these well-timed scenarios. Lynch somehow leaves U.S. in the early 1990s for Russia and becomes a very, very rich ex-pat. Or as the U.S. House Financial Service Committee stated in October 2007:

Who is Stephen Patrick Lynch?

Dozens of stories identify him as an American who bought at auction some $1.5 billion worth of Yukos assets for a discount price of $300 million. As far as I know, no one has made an effort to find out who he is and what his history is. I'd like to know if any of the panels think he or the American financiers of that deal might have any liability under U.S. law for participating in a process that has damaged Yukos and its U.S. shareholders.

Let's hear each panelist in turn.

Mr. Osborne. I met Mr. Lynch. I know no more about him than you just described.

I think it's not quite correct to say that he bought $1.5 billion worth of assets for $300 million because out of that is also a liability of $800 million to GML for the loan that is involved with those assets, which are the assets currently in the Netherlands, and there are other liabilities to Rosneft.

Over and above that, I have no further comments.

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