Russia halts gas supplies to Europe until sanctions are lifted

The Kremlin said on Monday that the interruption of Russian gas supplies to Germany through the strategic Nord Stream pipeline is the responsibility of the West alone, because sanctions prevent the sector’s infrastructure from being properly maintained.

“The pumping problems [de gás] emerged as a result of sanctions from Western states. There is no other reason for these problems,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov.

The declaration came just days after the complete shutdown of the Nord Stream, a crucial gas pipeline for supplying European countries, which fear an energy crisis in winter.

“Are these sanctions […] that led to the situation we are seeing now,” he told a telephone news conference.

The Kremlin spokesman also slammed the West’s relentless attempts to “shift responsibility and blame” to Moscow.

“The West, in this case the European Union, Canada and the United Kingdom, is responsible for the situation getting to this point,” he said.

Dmitri Peskov again justified the interruption of Russian gas supplies to Germany through the Nord Stream pipeline, announced on Friday, for a “serious maintenance” that, he said, affects the last turbine that was working so far.