Russia threatens to cut Ukraine gas over Donbas war

Putin said the first link in the Germany pipeline, called Nord Stream 2, was finished and that Russian state firm Gazprom was ready to fill it with gas.

“Gazprom is ready for deliveries, but everything will depend on the German regulator,” he said.

When a moderator pointed out that Russian gas currently “feeds” Ukraine’s transit pipeline network to the EU, Putin replied: “Do you think we should feed everyone? Do we have such a duty to feed everyone, or what?”.

Putin said he would honour existing contracts for Ukraine transit supplies, worth some €2bn a year to Kiev.

But speaking of supplies in the long term, he added: “Everything is possible, we are ready for this and we want it [future Ukraine transit], but we need goodwill on the part of our Ukrainian partners”.

“Spend money not in order to maintain the army and aim it at solving the problems of Donbas by force, but in order to improve the economy, work with people – do you understand?,” Putin said.

Donbas is a region in east Ukraine which Russia invaded in 2014 after a pro-Western revolution in Kiev.

The threat of politically motivated gas-cut offs, which could also hit Poland and the Baltic states, was the main reason why they and the US had opposed Nord Stream 2.

But German chancellor Angela Merkel has backed it for the sake of cheaper and more secure gas for German people.

He predecessor, Schröder, now works for Gazprom.

And Kurz, who spoke at the St Petersburg event by video-link, also praised it.

“Austrian companies are taking part in this [Nord Stream 2]. We, as well as Germany and some other European countries, see it in a positive way,” he said.

“Nord Stream 2 now provides us with safe, modern gas pipeline routes … we are very optimistic about it,” Kurz said.

Sputnik V claim

Meanwhile, the Russian president also used the event to trumpet Russia’s success in developing the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine.

“The Russian vaccine has been declared the safest and most effective vaccine in the world, with an efficacy of over 96 percent. According to our regulatory bodies, not a single death has been reported among those who received the vaccine,” Putin said.

He also complained that EU states were not buying it because the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Amsterdam, the EU regulator, was taking so long to approve it.

“I will not name surnames and names, but, for example, I was talking with one of the EU leaders, and he says to me: ‘You want to take our countries apart and come to an agreement with someone separately. Why don’t you submit your application to the appropriate European structure?’. I say: ‘We have delivered it [Russia’s Sputnik V application to the EMA]’,” Putin said.

But Putin’s claim that “not a single death has been reported among those who received the vaccine”, was not true.

EUobserver saw case files from Russian vaccine-administration body RosPotrebNadzor showing that four people died shortly after taking Sputnik V.

The authenticity of the files was confirmed both by Russia’s top virologist, Denis Logunov, who helped develop Sputnik V and by the EMA, which was treating the deaths “seriously”.

And for his part, Kurz, who was grilled by the moderator in St Petersburg as though he spoke for the whole of the EU, defended Europe’s approach.

“Sputnik has not yet been approved, not admitted. We are sorry about that,” Kurz said.

“We would really be ready to purchase Sputnik for Austria and use this vaccine, but as I said, we can only use vaccines in Austria that … are approved for use in the EU,” he said.

EU spokesman

The Austrian leader also defended old EU sanctions on Russia imposed over its Ukraine invasion, as well as new EU sanctions on Belarus for recently hijacking a plane to snatch an opposition activist living in Poland.

“We in Austria support the measures and sanctions that the European Union has introduced [on Russia], because we believe that there have been steps that are contrary to international law,” Kurz said.

“He [Roman Protasevich, the activist whom Belarus snatched off the plane] is not a terrorist, but a blogger and journalist,” Kurz said.

“Forcing a plane to make an emergency landing, arresting people, then beating confessions out of them – this is not normal,” the Austrian leader said, after Belarus paraded Protasevich on TV in a forced confession to his ‘crimes’.