Russia suspended this Saturday the shipment of gas to Latvia, within the framework of its sanctions dispute with Europe for the invasion of Ukraine, while on the ground the bombings and accusations crossed by the attack on a prison that housed Ukrainian prisoners of war.
The Russian state giant Gazprom (photo) announced that it stopped the supply to Latvia “for violation of gas dispatch conditions“, according to a message from the company on Telegram quoted by the Sputnik news agency.
Paid in Euros
On Friday, the Latvian firm Latvijas Gaze, one of the largest distributors of natural gas in the Baltic, announced that had resumed purchases of that hydrocarbon in Russia, but from a different supplier and with payments made in euros and not in rubles.
The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin demanded at the end of March that “hostile countries” pay for gas in rublesunder the argument that Western sanctions froze Russian assets in foreign currencies, in a decision that the European Union (EU) denounced as “blackmail”.
The Russian giant had already cut twice in June the volume of its deliveriesinvoking the absence of a turbine that was being repaired in Canada and that was not returned due to the sanctions imposed against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24.
Germany and Canada agreed to return the turbine to Russia, but it has not yet been shipped. Western countries accuse Russia of using the gas cuts as retaliation for the sanctions adopted against it. However, the Kremlin assures that the sanctions are what caused the technical problems of the gas infrastructure and that the Europeans are suffering the consequences of the measures imposed on Moscow.