Last update 6 hours ago
Ursula von der Leyen said there should also be a mandatory goal of reducing electricity use, as well as setting a price ceiling
The European Union’s executive body proposed setting a price cap on Russian gas, within hours of the Russian president condemning the idea as stupid.
Energy prices soared in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting the 27 European Union nations to act.
“We must cut off the revenue from Russia that Putin is using to finance this brutal war,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
But Putin said Moscow would respond to a price cap by halting supplies entirely.
“We will not save gas, oil, coal, heating oil – we will not save anything”, he said, if it goes against Russia’s interests.
European leaders have accused Moscow of “weaponizing” its gas exports in response to Western sanctions on Russian individuals and companies.
While the Kremlin denies this, the large Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany has been closed indefinitely, with Moscow directly blaming the sanctions.
Last week, the Group of Seven announced a ceiling on Russian oil prices – a move they said would reduce Moscow’s revenue for invading Ukraine and reduce inflation in the West.
Finnish researchers recently estimated that Russia reaped €158bn (£136bn) from rising fossil fuel prices during the six-month-old invasion – and EU imports account for more than half of that.
photo released, Archyde.com
“No matter how someone wants to isolate Russia, it is impossible to do,” Putin said.
Putin said it was “impossible” to isolate Russia, in response to the country’s unprecedented Western sanctions over its military operation in Ukraine.
This came during a speech he delivered today, Wednesday, in front of the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, which aims to encourage Asian countries to invest in the far eastern regions of the country.
“No matter how someone wants to isolate Russia, this is impossible to do,” Putin said.
He added that the Corona virus epidemic “has been replaced by other challenges of a global nature, which also threaten the entire world.”
He said: “By this, I mean the fever of Western sanctions and their clear aggressive attempts to impose patterns of behavior on other countries, strip them of their sovereignty and subject them to their will.”
He added that the imposed sanctions were a futile attempt to isolate Moscow, and escalated its intensity to declaring an economic war.
The United States and European Union countries imposed economic and personal sanctions on Moscow after Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24.
“In an attempt to resist the course of history, Western countries are undermining the basic pillars of the global economic system that has been built over centuries,” Putin said, adding that confidence in the dollar, the euro and the pound was declining.
Putin stressed that the Russian economy is dealing with what he called the financial and technological aggression of the West, but he acknowledged some difficulties in some industries and regions.
Faced with growing isolation and deteriorating relations with the West, Moscow is seeking to shift the country’s orientation toward the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
photo released, Archyde.com
Putin said that sanctions against Russia are the biggest current threat to the global economy
Asia is the future
In his speech, Putin praised the growing role of the Asia-Pacific region in world affairs, saying: “The role of … the countries of the Asia-Pacific region has grown significantly.”
He added that partnerships in the region “will create tremendous new opportunities for our people.”
Describing sanctions against Russia as the biggest current threat facing the global economy, Putin said the West is failing while Asia is the future, in an effort to underscore Russia’s tilt toward Asia.
Putin will meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, next week in Uzbekistan, adding that China will pay Gazprom for gas purchases in national currencies, 50/50 between the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan.
During his speech, Putin sought not to mention Ukraine, except when he referred to grain exports, in response to a question about whether the conflict had caused losses, as Putin said that Russia had gained, “We have lost nothing and will not lose anything. Everything is not It is necessary and harmful to us, and everything that stands in the way of our progress we will reject.”
He said that Russia had nothing to lose in its global confrontation with the United States over the conflict in Ukraine, but it had already benefited by defining a new sovereign course that would reshape its global influence.
“I can say that the main gain is the strengthening of our sovereignty, and this is an inevitable consequence of what is happening now,” he added.
Russia sent tens of thousands of its soldiers to Ukraine last February for what it described as a special operation to undermine the military capabilities of its southern neighbor and root out what it described as dangerous nationalists.
photo released, Archyde.com
region Safe protection
The Secretary-General of the United Nations has outlined steps to create a safe protection zone around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
At an emergency meeting of the Security Council, Antonio Guterres said that Russian forces should leave the region and that Ukraine should pledge not to transfer its forces there.
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow needed more information, and Russia had repeatedly rejected calls to withdraw its forces from Zaporizhia, saying that the forces were protecting the complex. The UN nuclear inspectors told the Security Council that they found significant damage.
A senior US diplomat, Jeffrey DiLaurentis, said Russia had no right to expose the world to a potential nuclear disaster.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the International Atomic Energy Agency’s call for the establishment of a safe protection zone around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
And the United Nations agency warned that the bombing of the station may lead to the spread of radioactive materials, noting that the presence of Russian military equipment in the facility undermines its safety.
It called for the establishment of a “security zone” in the vicinity of the station, after a delegation from it visited the facility last week.
Russia occupied the station since the start of the war, and has been repeatedly attacked since then.
Zelensky said he would support the proposed security zone if it was aimed at demilitarizing the vicinity of the nuclear plant.
The Russian and Ukrainian sides exchanged accusations over responsibility for the bombing of the station.
Russia on Tuesday accused the Ukrainian side of bombing the area around the station three times within 24 hours.
Ukraine says Russian forces are using the facility to fire from it toward surrounding cities, despite the Russians’ insistence that they are guarding the station.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has been careful not to blame either side.