Have we reached the endgame of Vladimir Putin’s energy war against the West, the point at which he turns off the gas for good?
This afternoon, Gazprom announced that from Wednesday morning it will cut the quantity of gas flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany to 33 cubic meters per day. [bold, links added]
This will halve the current flow of 67 million cubic meters and is just 20 percent of the 167 million cubic meters that flowed through the pipeline before the Ukraine invasion.
Ostensibly, the cut is for reasons of ‘maintenance’. That is unlikely to wash.
Nord Stream 1 relies on a compressor station powered by six turbines, but Russia was supplied with two spare turbines to prevent any need for a reduction in flows during maintenance periods.
One of the turbines has just been returned to Russia after servicing in Canada.
The latest cut will not just further damage the German economy, which is on the brink of recession (Olaf Scholz’s government has previously intimated that the country’s famous car factories may have to close if gas supplies are short).
It will also have a knock-on effect all over Europe, sending prices skywards once more. It is another serious embarrassment for the Scholz administration.
Slow to impose sanctions against Russia in the wake of the Ukraine invasion, Germany did later announce plans to wean itself off Russian gas and oil, with Russian gas planned to make up no more than 10 percent of total demand by the middle of 2024.
Germany looks rudderless because it is now Putin who is setting the timetable.
At the current rate, it looks unlikely that in two years there will be any Russian gas left for Germany to boycott.
Europe, and especially Germany, is not merely heading for economic turmoil as a result of energy starvation. Putin is managing to make Europe look politically powerless.
Read more at Spectator AU
Trump warned Europe about trusting their energy needs to Russia during a UN speech. They laughed at him.
Political fools have been in a trance following the green pied piper and are now falling off the cliff.
All of the laundered money through Ukraine and other places have gone back to these rats and they are willing to kill us for it.
Putin is simply shining a light on how evil the EU and USA politicians really are!
Folks in the U.S need to pay attention to the current EU “Pickle.” We are headed down the same route to energy POVERTY if we don’t snap out of the “Green Dream”…
…and to control by China.
Putin hasn’t needed to do anything here. This crisis is totally self inflicted by the West.
If you make sanctions against a country, you better make sure you will not suffer more than that sanctioned country.
Putin has the popcorn in hand while watching the West commit mass suicide.
Putin wants to put the USSR back together. What will it take to make him fail?