Martin Duffy
The new year starts with another development in the Ukraine-Russia War, Europe’s war over gas. Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia was the EU’s biggest supplier of natural gas. The EU (and to a lesser extent, the wider European bloc) has thereby reduced Russia’s share of imports from over 40% in 2021 to 8% in 2023, according to the European Council. To fill the energy gap, Europe has imported more liquefied natural gas (LNG) — by sea tankers — from the USA and other countries, as well as pipeline-gas from countries like Norway. The EU has also ramped up temporary imports of Russian LNG but the EU has a self-imposed deadline of 2027 and envisages stoppage of all Russian fossil fuels.
As Ukraine has been the victim of so much of Putin’s energy-focused attack, it has forced a moral dilemma in Kyiv emerging from a Presidential decision on shutting off the Russian gas-pipes that flow through Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the move “one of Moscow’s greatest defeats…turning energy into a weapon and engaging in cynical energy-blackmail against its partners”. Ukrainian Energy Minister Halushchenko described the stop on Russian gas to Europe as a “historic event….Russia is losing its markets and will suffer financial losses…” But there are inevitable human consequences to this gas war.
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