“We will be able to now not provide fuel, oil, coal, heating oil — we can now not provide the rest,” Putin stated.
Sergei Karpukhin | Afp | Getty Photographs
Europe used to be already dealing with a hard and unpredictable wintry weather when it got here to its power provides because it seems to section out all Russian imports.
However Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday once more threatened to fully prevent all provides, a transfer which he hinted would go away Europe to “freeze.”
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Russia has already halted fuel provides to the area bringing up technical problems at the Nord Flow 1 pipeline, leaving the area susceptible because it tries to refill power garage forward of the chillier months.
Responding to EU proposals to put in force value caps on Russian power imports, Putin informed trade leaders in Vladivostok that Russia may just but make a decision to tear up current provide contracts.
“Will there be any political choices that contradict the contracts? Sure, we simply may not satisfy them. We will be able to now not provide the rest in any respect if it contradicts our pursuits,” Putin stated on the Japanese Financial Discussion board in Russia’s a long way east.
“We will be able to now not provide fuel, oil, coal, heating oil — we can now not provide the rest,” Putin stated.
“We’d simplest have something left to do: as within the well-known Russian fairy story, we’d let the wolf’s tail freeze,” he stated.
Russian newspaper Pravda describes the story as involving a crafty fox who made a silly wolf catch fish within the frozen river by way of placing his tail into an ice hollow.
“The fox would hop across the determined and hungry wolf announcing “freeze, freeze, the wolf’s tail” till the ice hollow iced over trapping the wolf within the ice. Males from the village then got here and beat the wolf for all of the dangerous issues that he had carried out to them in summer time. The wolf struggled and escaped, however his tail used to be left within the frozen ice hollow,” Pravda stated.
Power rationing
Putin’s risk to halt all provides raises the chance of power rationing in Europe this wintry weather. The EU has already known as upon its participants to voluntarily cut back their fuel intake by way of 15% within the fall and wintry weather however that may not be sufficient to allay the will for restrictions on fuel use.
Quite a few Eu governments have introduced measures to offer protection to voters from rocketing power expenses. Within the interim, Western international locations are looking to put force on Russia’s power revenues, which they are saying are investment the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, by way of proposing value caps on Russian oil and fuel.
Eu Fee President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday described the placement dealing with Europe as “strange … as a result of Russia is an unreliable provider and is manipulating our power markets.”
She stated the Fee would put ahead instant measures to assist shoppers, together with a compulsory goal for lowering electrical energy use at top hours, a cap on revenues of businesses generating electrical energy with low prices, and different plans to proportion the weight of power value rises.
“Low carbon power assets are making sudden revenues, which don’t mirror their manufacturing prices. It’s now time for shoppers to take pleasure in the low prices of low carbon power assets, like renewables,” von der Leyen stated in a observation, announcing fossil gasoline corporations must additionally give a contribution to easing pressures on shoppers.
“Oil and fuel corporations have additionally made huge income. We will be able to subsequently suggest a harmony contribution for fossil gasoline corporations. As a result of all power assets should assist deal with this disaster.”
Von der Leyen stated power software corporations should be supported to deal with the volatility of the markets and proposed a cap on Russian fuel. “The target right here may be very transparent. We should reduce Russia’s revenues which Putin makes use of to finance this atrocious struggle in opposition to Ukraine.”
At first of the struggle, she famous that the EU imported round 40% of its fuel from Russia. It had decreased that degree all the way down to 9% of its fuel imports, she stated.
EU power ministers are set to fulfill on Friday to talk about the proposals defined by way of the Fee.