London, Thanasis Gavos
The West has made a “terrible mistake” by continuing to rely on Russian oil and gas since the 2014 invasion of Crimea, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the Daily Telegraph.
“The Russian leader had carried out a violent attack and occupied a huge part of a sovereign country and we let him escape,” Johnson wrote.
Pointing out that President Putin uses energy as a means of “blackmail”, he goes on to say that the West can not continue in this way.
He called for a ban on the import of Russian hydrocarbons in order to hurt the Putin regime financially, as Russia “produces very few other things that the rest of the world wants to buy.”
While acknowledging that the ban would trigger a “painful” period of adjustment for the West, the British prime minister said: “As long as the West is financially dependent on Putin, it will do everything it can to take advantage of that dependence. That is why this dependence must end now – and it will end. “
Mr Johnson is expected to travel to Riyadh later this week to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a bid to persuade Gulf states to release oil reserves to avoid further price hikes.
For the same reason, on Monday night, Boris Johnson had a telephone conversation with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. According to Downing Street, they agreed to work together “to improve global energy security”.
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