Washington: Russia uses energy supplies as a weapon against European countries
The White House said on Wednesday that Russia is essentially using energy supplies as a weapon by cutting off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
“Unfortunately this is the type of step, the type of almost weaponizing energy supplies, that was predicted,” according to Reuters the White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.
She indicated that we had communicated with Bulgaria and Poland during the last hours to discuss compensating them for Russian gas.
Russia decided to halt gas supplies to Bulgaria and Poland because they refuse to pay the price of gas in rubles. This step directly targets European economies and also exposes divisions in the European Union over how to respond to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
TASS news agency quoted the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying: “Russia was a reliable energy supplier and was not engaging in blackmail.”
Last March, the Russian President issued a decree stating that “unfriendly countries”, including all European Union states, will not be allowed to pay for Russian gas except in rubles.
