Few will be minded to believe Russia’s explanation for cutting off Nord Stream 1 pipeline – that it is a maintenance issue – and I don’t suspect we are expected to believe it, either – any more than we were expected to believe that the would-be Salisbury assassins had an interest in cathedral spires. It is pretty blatant what game Vladimir Putin is playing: Europe has announced, grandly, its intentions to wean itself off Russian gas and oil and Putin has set out to pre-empt that, to cut off the gas while Europe is still pretty much reliant on it.
Gas supplies to Germany from Russia were already down to 20 per cent of the level they were before the Ukraine invasion. No one should count on the gas being turned on again. Eventually, Europe will manage just fine without Russian gas, once we have commissioned more terminals to receive liquified natural gas (LNG) from the US, Qatar and elsewhere.
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