Russia’s Gazprom announced that it has fully suspended natural gas exports to the Netherlands, because they refused to pay in rubles. “GasTerra will not go along with Gazprom’s payment demands,” said GasTerra in a statement yesterday, which is partly owned by the Dutch state and trades on behalf of the government. About 15% of the country’s natural gas supplies come from Russia.
Denmark may be cut off as well shortly. Denmark’s Orsted has also rejected the demand to pay in rubles and warns its supplies from Gazprom could be cut.
Otherwise, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic commented that Russian President Putin will only smile at the latest round of EU sanctions against Russia, which included an embargo on the majority of oil shipped from Russia to European countries. “You can introduce a gas embargo against Russia [as well]. Why don’t you?” the Croatian leader noted in a conversation with journalists on May 31. “Unfortunately, the sanctions don’t work, possibly, at some point they will. And the ruble didn’t drop, Russia does not feel any of this from the financial point of view, and when it does, the war will be over. The price will be paid by European citizens while Vladimir Putin will smile with satisfaction,” he explained. Milanovic asserted that there will be other customers for Russian oil and gas, above all, due to high demand for energy products.
