If Putin is using gas prices to fight Europe, how can it fight back?

Dmytro Kuleba Annalena Baerbock Volodymyr Zelenskiy Britain Germany Russia Ukraine city Berlin Citizens Waves Fighting Persona

29.07.2022 - 11:35

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theguardian.com:

With little appetite in Europe for a further wave of sanctions on Russia, and Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, raising the prospect of a popular uprising in Germany this autumn over gas prices, Ukraine and its allies are focused on tightening the existing panoply of sanctions rather than putting forward more radical proposals. As many as 20 countries may be involved in bypassing the current sanctions, Ukraine reckons.

Ukraine cannot but be nervous that the popular revolt of which Baerbock warned – before quickly regretting her choice of words – will mean support for the war erodes before a Ukrainian military counteroffensive can bolster it. “In Ukraine Putin fights with missiles and tanks, in Europe he fights with gas prices,” says the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba.

Andrii Yermak, lead adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is clearly wary of how public opinion may turn and says it would be a mistake to allow the war to drag on into winter. The war has to be settled this year, he believes.

He claims, and hopes, the people of Milan and Berlin value the price of freedom in Europe over the price of gas. But even the UK’s rock-solid political support for Ukraine may waver if energy bills hit £500 a month in January. It is an endurance test, in which the two competitors play by different rules. After all, Putin does not have to listen to public opinion; he decides it.

All that can be assumed is that Putin will keep turning down the gas taps using various pretexts such as turbine failure in the hope that Europe panics about what lies ahead. Thus on Wednesday the Russian energy group Gazprom cut the flow of gas through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to about one-fifth of capacity. European