Pushback against Russian sanctions grows in Germany and Italy

Before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, some of the Kremlin’s staunchest friends in Europe were the energy executives who lobbied for ever greater dependence on Russian gas and their political allies. The war – and the still-unexplained destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines which connected Germany directly to Russia last September – sent Russia’s share of European gas supplies plummeting from over 40 per cent to around 5 per cent. Sweeping US and EU sanctions made doing business with Russian state-owned companies not only taboo but illegal. 

Nonetheless, many of Europe’s energy tsars, industrialists and politicians still dream of restoring cheap Russian gas supplies – and are making increasingly public calls for a return to business as usual. Michael Kretschmer, premier of the German state of Saxony, recently called for the destroyed Nord Stream-1 pipeline to be repaired.

‘The lesson from the Ukraine war, after all, is that you need options’ for energy supplies, Kretschmer told a television interviewer in March.