It became clear what Lukashenko meant when he threatened to block gas transit to Europe
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has promised several times over the past month to stop gas transit to Europe if pressure on his country increases.
Some experts perceived this as a challenge to Russia, but Moscow reacted quite calmly to the attacks of its ally in Minsk, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
And so, last week it became clear that Old Man was not carried away, as someone might have thought. He simply had inside information from Gazprom, which itself was preparing to reduce transit through the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline.
Through this pipeline, gas flows mainly to Poland, which a year ago in the Stockholm arbitration forced Gazprom to abandon the formula calculation of gas prices and link it to stock exchange quotations. Then market prices were falling, but this year the situation has changed, but the Russian monopoly no longer has any obligations to Warsaw: Gazprom’s long-term agreement for transit through Poland has ended. Since then, the capacity of the Polish segment has been distributed through auctions.
The $1,5 billion in compensation awarded by Poland in 2020 has now turned into a heavy reckoning. Transit along the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline almost stopped over the weekend.
According to the German network operator Gascade, the pumping level corresponds to 5% of the gas pipeline capacity. To date, Gazprom has purchased even less capacity - 4,3% (3,8 million cubic meters, although 89,1 million cubic meters were offered). The gas pipeline is teetering on the verge of stopping.
The American agency Reuters hastened to accuse Gazprom of disrupting supplies to Germany. However, the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borel, denied this claim.
“So far, strictly speaking, Russia is fulfilling its gas supply obligations,” Borrell wrote in a blog on the EU Foreign Ministry website.
“The Poles got fed up with their lawsuits and, as expected, got hit on the ears. Moreover, it was legal - the auction was simply left without participants. Gazprom didn’t show up, but there aren’t and can’t be others,” political scientist Marat Bashirov commented on the situation in his Telegram channel.
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