The Gas Weapon in a Russia-Ukraine Conflict

According to Vladimir Putin, “true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.” Besides the delicious contradiction there, it shows how far the Russian president’s designs on Ukraine stretch beyond the gas pipelines that fueled previous crises. (You can read the whole, rather turgid essay here.) Yet if Russia does invade Ukraine (again), the effect on energy markets this winter is something Western countries will need to contend with.

The most obvious point of impact, one that obsesses Washington, is the roughly 40% of Europe’s gas imports that come from Russia. In the past, spats between Moscow and Kyiv would occasionally result in cutoffs because the pipelines run through Ukraine. But now the Nord Stream 2 project linking Russia directly with Germany has been built to avoid that. The U.S. regards this as part of the Kremlin’s multidecade project to use gas as a weapon to divide European allies. For Germany, it’s a way to diversify supply routes to alleviate the risks that come with buying a lot of gas from Russia.