Moscow names main victim and beneficiary of Kiev’s gas halt
Ukraine’s decision to block the transit of Russian gas only benefits the US at the expense of Washington’s supposed allies in Europe, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
Kiev refused to extend the contract with Gazprom past the end of 2024, effectively cutting off the flow of Russian natural gas to EU member states such as Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia. The move also deprives Ukraine of transit fees of up to $1 billion.
“The US is the main beneficiary of this redistribution in the Old World energy markets, and the main sponsor of the Ukrainian crisis,” Zakharova said on Thursday.
“The first victim of their predatory strategy was the largest European economy, Germany,” Zakharova added, pointing out that the September 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipelines forced Berlin to buy American liquefied natural gas (LNG) “at significantly higher prices,” which resulted in closures of many German industries.
“Now the other countries of the once-economically successful and independent European Union will also be forced to pay the price for American patronage,” the Russian diplomat said.
Zakharova noted that Kiev made the decision even though Gazprom fulfilled its contractual obligations and diligently paid transit fees, regardless of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. The move will negatively impact the living standards of people across the EU, she said.
Responsibility “lies entirely with the US, its puppet regime in Kiev, and the governments of European countries that have sacrificed the well-being of their citizens for the sake of subsidizing the US economy,” Zakharova said.
Kiev’s cutoff has already caused a surge in European energy prices, which reached €50 per megawatt hour for the first time in over a year. The euro has also fallen to its weakest level against the US dollar since November 2022, when the bloc first geared for winter energy shortages, trading at just $1.03.
While some EU statesmen, such as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, warned of “severe consequences” of the gas transit blockade, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski – who thanked the US for the Nord Stream explosions in a now-deleted tweet – declared it “another victory after the enlargement of NATO.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine celebrated the end of the transit contract as a “historic event” that denies Russia a traditional market.
