Russia Uses Natural Gas as Economic Weapon
Europe thought is was a great idea to buy all its natural gas from Russia. Trump told them it was foolish to become energy dependent on a nation such as Russia. Now some of the largest economies in the Western world are going to have to close businesses because they have no energy to run their factories. This will mean they will have even less tax money to make their energy payments. One big gas line from Russia to Europe has already been closed. They have kept another open that runs through Ukraine. As the author points out, Europe is willing to pay billions to Russia for gas pumped across Ukraine so that Russia can use this money to fund its war to destroy Ukraine. Very little makes sense on planet earth anymore.
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.. on Monday Russia finally admitted what everyone has known since February - namely that it has weaponized commodities in response to the West's weaponization of currencies (as Zoltan Pozsar has said all along),when the Kremlin said that Russia’s gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will not resume in full until the “collective west” lifts sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, blamed EU, UK, and Canadian sanctions for Russia’s failure to deliver gas through the key pipeline, which delivers gas to Germany from St Petersburg via the Baltic sea.
“The problems pumping gas came about because of the sanctions western countries introduced against our country and several companies,” Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency. “There are no other reasons that could have caused this pumping problem.”
Peskov’s comments were the most stark demand yet by the Kremlin that the EU roll back its sanctions in exchange for Russia resuming gas deliveries to the continent. It also confirms that Russia no longer needs to pretend it needs to export commodities to Europe - after all it has more than enough demand in China and India - and is willing to give Europe just enough to rope to... well, you know the rest.
On Friday, Gazprom said it would halt gas supplies through Nord Stream 1 because of a technical fault, which it blamed on difficulties repairing German-made turbines in Canada. We now know that was a strawman; and in the latest confirmation of who has the upper hand in the ongoing commodity feud, the EU had already rolled back some sanctions against Russia explicitly to allow the turbines to be repaired. European leaders have said there is nothing to prevent Gazprom from supplying the continent with gas and had accused Russia of “weaponising” its energy exports.
Meanwhile, as we reported over the weekend, Russia is still supplying gas to Europe via Soviet-era pipelines through Ukraine that have remained open despite the invasion, as well as the South Stream pipeline via Turkey. And in an ironic twist, the head of the Ukraine gas transit operator told Reuters that Ukraine could "technically" substitute full capacity of Nord Stream 1 via Ukraine's Sudzha entry point. In other words, Europe would pay Putin billions for Russian gas transiting through Ukraine with Russia using proceeds to fight Ukraine...
Of course, nothing in today's "news" should come as a surprise: Russian officials have made little secret of their hope that the growing energy crisis in Europe will sap the bloc’s support for Ukraine. “Obviously life is getting worse for people, businessmen, and companies in Europe,” Peskov said. “Of course, ordinary people in these countries will have more and more questions for their leaders.”
posted by dennis at
7:21 AM
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