By Marek Strzeliki, Tsvetelia Tsolova and Pavel
WARSAW/SOFIA/Kyiv (Archyde.com) – Russia halted gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland on Wednesday for refusing to comply with its demand to pay for gas in rubles, a move directly targeting European economies and exposing divisions in the European Union over how to respond to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The decision, which European leaders denounced as “blackmail”, comes at a time when Russia’s economy is sagging under the weight of sweeping international sanctions and with Western countries stepping up arms shipments to help Ukraine fend off a new Russian offensive in the east.
On Wednesday, Ukraine reported that Russian forces had made gains in several villages there. Russia has seen a number of bombings on its side of the border and a fire in an arms depot.
Ukraine’s chief prosecutor said Russian forces used tear gas and stun grenades to break up a pro-Ukrainian rally in the southern city of Kherson, the first major urban center that Moscow seized after the Feb. 24 invasion.
Russian energy giant Gazprom, which has Russia’s gas export monopoly, said it had “completely stopped gas supplies” to Polish and Bulgarian gas companies “due to non-payment of ruble payments” as stipulated in a decree by President Vladimir Putin aimed at mitigating the impact of sanctions on Russian economy.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said the move violated “basic legal principles”. Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov said gas was being used as a “political and economic weapon”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia remains a reliable supplier of energy and denied involvement in blackmail. He declined to say how many countries had agreed to switch to paying for gas in rubles, but other European consumers said gas supplies were flowing normally.
“a tool of blackmail”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described cutting gas supplies to some customers in Europe as yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as a tool for blackmail.
The new Russian gas payment system, which includes opening accounts in Gazprom Bank where payments in euros or dollars can be converted into rubles, opens a room for maneuver that could make some countries continue to buy Russian gas, raising the tension of the European Union’s united front against Moscow.
The commission said that if Russian gas buyers confirm that payment is complete once they deposit the euro, as opposed to what happened later when the euro is converted into rubles, it will not breach the sanctions. Germany and Austria-Hungary were among the countries that took this route.
Poland and Bulgaria, which were vassal states of Moscow during the Soviet era, joined the European Union and NATO. Poland is one of the Kremlin’s staunch opponents of the war.
Bulgaria’s relations with Russia have been warmer, but Prime Minister Kirill Petkov, an anti-graft activist who took office last year, denounced the invasion of Ukraine. He is scheduled to arrive in Kyiv on Wednesday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Bulgaria and Poland are the only European countries to have contracts with Gazprom due to expire at the end of this year, meaning their search for alternative supplies is well underway.
The shutdown comes at a time when the weather is getting warmer and the need for gas for heating is less, so it is unlikely that it will lead to an immediate supply disruption to consumers. Poland says it has large reserves of gas, while Bulgaria, which consumes relatively less, is looking for alternative supplies from Greece and Turkey.
But if the outage continues for several months or spreads to other countries, it could cause chaos for a continent that depends on abundant and cheap Russian gas to heat homes, run factories and generate electricity.
Kyiv is urging European Union countries to stop funding Moscow’s war efforts by halting imports that bring Russia hundreds of millions of dollars a day. Germany, Russia’s biggest energy buyer, hopes to stop importing Russian oil within days, but depriving itself of Russian gas presents a much bigger challenge.
Economy Minister Robert Habeck said a ban or halt on Russian gas would push Europe’s largest economy into recession.
Meanwhile, a Russian Economy Ministry document indicated on Wednesday that the Russian economy could contract by as much as 12.4 percent this year due to the impact of sanctions and high inflation.
* severe punishment
Since Russian forces were pushed back on the outskirts of Kyiv last month, Moscow has refocused its operations on eastern Ukraine, launching a new offensive from several directions to take full control of two regions known as Donbas.
“Russia has already mobilized its strength for a major offensive in eastern Ukraine… In the coming days we will need all our resilience and exceptional unity,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said on his Facebook page.
Explosions were heard early Wednesday morning in three Russian provinces on the border with Ukraine, and an ammunition depot in Belgorod Province caught fire, authorities said.
Kyiv did not claim responsibility for these and other earlier incidents, but described them as a price to pay. “The consequence is a cruel thing,” Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolak, wrote on social media.
An assistant to the mayor of the devastated coastal city of Mariupol said that Russian forces renewed their attacks on the Azovstal steel plant, where fighters and some civilians are holed up. No agreement was reached on the attempt to evacuate civilians from Mariupol on Wednesday.
Despite the breakdown in relations between Russia and the West, Moscow and Washington conducted a prisoner exchange. The United States released Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, imprisoned for drug trafficking, and Russia released former US Marine Trevor Reid, accused of clashing with police.
Concern has grown in recent days about the possibility of the conflict spreading to neighboring Moldova, where pro-Russian separatists have blamed Ukraine for attacks reported this week in their region occupied by Russian forces since the 1990s.
Transnistrian authorities said there had been cross-border shootings from Ukraine on Wednesday. Kyiv describes the accusations as a provocation and accuses Moldova’s pro-Western separatist government of trying to provoke conflict.
The invasion of Ukraine left thousands dead and wounded, reduced towns and cities to rubble, and forced more than five million people to flee abroad. Moscow describes its move as a “special operation” to disarm Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies describe the war as an unjustified act of aggression.