Russia has told Poland and Bulgaria that the Russian company Gazprom will cut off gas supplies on Wednesday. This is due to the countries' refusal to pay Russia for gas in Russian currency in the future. A Bulgarian and a Polish company announced this on Tuesday.
Apparently, Russia wants to set an example for other European countries if they also refuse to pay for Russian gas in rubles. This is reported by The Guardian. This is causing great concern in Europe, which is deeply dependent on Russian gas.
In Poland alone, Russia currently supplies 55 percent of the country's annual consumption of around 21 billion cubic meters of gas. The Polish government held an emergency press conference on Tuesday evening following the Russian announcement.
Poland: No need to worry
Here, Poland's climate minister assured the population that there were enough supplies to cope with a disruption of gas via the Yamal pipeline.
- There is no need to worry about the gas supply in our homes. Since the first day of the war, we have declared that we are ready to make ourselves completely independent of Russian raw materials, said Climate Minister Anna Moskwa, according to The Guardian.
Poland's largest gas supplier, PGNiG, has announced that it will file a lawsuit against Gazprom for breach of contract.
Shortly after PGNiG was informed that Russia would close the gas taps, the Bulgarian gas company Bulgargaz received the same message. On Wednesday, Russia will also shut off gas to Bulgaria via the TurkStream pipeline.
Bulgaria and Russia were once close allies, but Bulgaria has severed many ties with Russia, including by supporting the West's sanctions against President Vladimir Putin and his people.
Bulgaria imports over 90 percent of its gas from Russia. But here too, there will be no restrictions on citizens' gas consumption for the time being, the country's energy ministry assures.
After the announcement of the shutdown of gas in Poland and Bulgaria, gas prices in Europe rose by up to 17 percent on Tuesday evening. This is reported by the financial media Bloomberg. According to the media, the price increases are due to fears that other European countries could be the next to be shut off by Russia.
In 2021, the EU received around 40 percent of its gas of its gas from Russia.
Ritzau
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