Putin’s gas blackmail risks backfiring disastrously
As Europe battles to keep the lights on this winter, leaders across the Continent have begun framing the energy standoff with Russia as an epic struggle between good and evil.
“It is about autocracy against democracy,” said Ursula Von Der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, in her annual address on Wednesday.
Her rhetoric, a far cry from past calls for diplomacy, is the latest example of hardening European attitudes amid signs that the tide may finally be turning – both on and off the battlefield in Ukraine.
With Kyiv’s soldiers pushing back the Russian invaders and the European Union comfortably exceeding targets for gas storage, academics and experts say that – although the coming months will be among the hardest in living memory – Vladimir Putin no longer holds the leverage he once did over the Continent’s gas supplies.
The Russian president has mercilessly throttled flows into Europe this summer, pushing up household energy bills and forcing governments to announce support packages of an unprecedented scale to protect consumers.
But after playing many of his strongest cards in the stand-off with EU leaders, who have supported Ukraine and sanctioned Russia, Putin's weaponisation of gas is now at risk of spectacularly backfiring, according to John Lough, an associate fellow at Chatham House.
As Europe battles to keep the lights on this winter, leaders across the Continent have begun framing the energy standoff with Russia as an epic struggle between good and evil.
Her rhetoric, a far cry from past calls for diplomacy, is the latest example of hardening European attitudes amid signs that the tide may finally be turning – both on and off the battlefield in Ukraine.
With Kyiv’s soldiers pushing back the Russian invaders and the European Union comfortably exceeding targets for gas storage, academics and experts say that – although the coming months will be among the hardest in living memory – Vladimir Putin no longer holds the leverage he once did over the Continent’s gas supplies.
The Russian president has mercilessly throttled flows into Europe this summer, pushing up household energy bills and forcing governments to announce support packages of an unprecedented scale to protect consumers.
But after playing many of his strongest cards in the stand-off with EU leaders, who have supported Ukraine and sanctioned Russia, Putin's weaponisation of gas is now at risk of spectacularly backfiring, according to John Lough, an associate fellow at Chatham House.
“What Putin has now is probably a declining asset,” says the former Nato representative to Moscow.
“He could make threats for a while, see gas prices go up, and send European governments into a panic.
“But it now rather looks as though we're going to get through this winter. It might take some European economies into recession, but it’s not going to be fatal.
“My sense is that European leaders have got a bit more confidence now – they can see a path through this.”
This cautious sense of optimism comes after a months-long effort by EU member states such as Germany to cut down gas consumption, secure alternative supplies and fill up storage facilities.
But it is also because, having already cut deliveries to levels that would have been unthinkable previously, Russia now has few ways left to ratchet up the pressure further without also causing pain to itself.
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