"Russia Shocks Europe By Ending All Gas Transfers..." Topic

…Through Ukraine.

"Russia cut gas exports to Europe by 60 per cent today, plunging the continent into an energy crisis 'within hours' as a dispute with Ukraine escalated.

This morning, gas companies in Ukraine said that Russia had completely cut off their supply.

Six countries reported a complete shut-off of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine today, in a sharp escalation of a struggle over energy that threatens Europe as winter sets in…"

Full article here
link

This is a major announcement from Russia …. the equivalent of using a nuclear economic bomb …. and one that will severely impact Ukraine and all of Europe. This is big!

Amicalement
Armand

Cut off the gas…. where are the Russians sending the gas to if not Europe? China and India not in play yet and poor Turkey and Iran don't need it. Russians generally don't use LNG transport so… where is the Southern Russian gas going? If nowhere, then Russia has no income from gas sales coming into the national treasury and GazProm. NordStream pipeline can only send gas from Northern Russia via the Baltic sea route.
They want Europe to build their pipeline line connection via Greece to Turkey and connect with the "to be constructed" Russia to Turkey expansion pipeline. That, if ever done, is years away. In the short term, Europe will seek LNG and other suppliers before any pipeline connection is made.

Saw that coming last Summer.

Not sure why it is surprising to anyone in the EU, given the person in charge, and past bullying tactics.

I mean it is the dead of Winter there, so will have the most impact now, rather than later.

Not cutting off gas would have been the REAL surprise.

Détente comrade?

Nyet!

Yup. Putin threatening Europe in order to get them to back off Sanctions and give him a freer hand in Ukraine. He's done it before in the middle of winter.

One would think that such story will be on the front pages of all world and european media…but it is not. Nothing on it on BBC, CNN, Euronews, or local press so far.
It might be that Ukraine simply helps itself with the gas, foreseen for European countries.

This only seems to have appeared in the Daily mail, but I can't see a date on it as it shows the current date only?

Overnight the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered the state energy giant Gazprom to cut supplies to and through Ukraine by around three-fifths amid accusations its neighbour has been siphoning off and stealing Russian gas.

They may have a legal problem there if they are cutting the supply on the accusation of theft by a third party mid-stream, as the contractual obligation to supply to the contracting customer will still be in effect.

May be it is last year's events? ;)

looks like it is not even on Daily Mail today's front page, full of various insignificant crap…

link

It would seem this would hurt Russia's economy more than anyone else in the EU by this point. Didn't Putin try this before and western Europe sought gas elsewhere to be less reliant on Russian gas in the future?

Two variants:
- Russia delivers contracted gas amount to Ukraine, the gas is not delivered to Europe, or not delivered in full.
In this case Ukraine is responsible per gas supply contracts.

- Russia cuts the supply, and therefore Ukraine can't deliver to Europe.
In this case Russia is reponsible per gas supply contracts.

The pic of Putin/Miller is from 7.01 this year (found it in BBC article, for instance), and article says that the pic is from "yesterday's meeting". Something doesn't fit.

Two variants:

Yeah, but the wording indicates that Putin has ordered the supply cut at source, therefore it has never actually been delivered.

May be it is last year's events? ;)

I wondered about that, but the article does refer to the oil price:

"The dispute, coupled with Israel's military operation in Gaza, also pushed oil up to a three-week high of $49.91 USD in New York yesterday."

Not sure oil was that low last year (?)

Agree, Barin1 and others. This appears to be misinformation, so will have to see collaborating validation.

Nopt sure it is misinformation, but the source seems isolated and unverifiable.

Plenty of articles out about it today with more detail:

link

That's about longer term plans to ship via Turkey, in the absence of southstream, not about an unannounced cutting off of gas to Europe.

The Mail article is from 2009 – I think it's popped back up and the blogosphere's gone mental as if it's current news….

Lol. I find that with the BBC sometimes – the news articles on the side can go back years and you suddenly drop into a time wharp!!

I'm afraid the amount of propaganda you guys are receiving these days will soon make you beleive that it was putin who ordered cold and snowstorms in Uk. And as for Tango I think it is time for him to answer for repeated misinformation posting from crap sources, so my favourite squad of com.ando bears is sent to Argentina.

(The Mail's highly irritating habit if not dating stories strikes again. If you click on the byline though, it takes you to everything by the same journalist, of which the mostrecent article was March '09….)

Yes, you get it with the Beeb from time to time, but their stuff *is* dated, so people just need to learn to read there…. ;-)

I'm afraid the level of propaganda coming out of Russian media lately would have everyone believing that Putin had sent it…

I'm afraid the amount of propaganda you guys are receiving these days will soon make you beleive that it was putin who ordered cold and snowstorms in Uk.

No, we know that it's merely General Winter making a visit.

However, please note that General Winter has overstayed his welcome, and is no longer welcome here in the US!