Recently, British Prime Minister Sunak said at a meeting of the British Policy Exchange Association that "when Putin stopped supplying natural gas, it had a devastating impact on the lives of European people and threatened European energy security."
Regarding Sunak's "throwing off the black pot", Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zakharova shot back, "The British Prime Minister is pitiful and stupid. Russia's failure to stop gas supplies to Europe was given up by the Europeans themselves in fear of US pressure."
According to the data, before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Europe consumed about 500 billion cubic meters of natural gas every year, and the natural gas supplied by Russia accounted for as much as 45% of it. Among them, Finland and Bulgaria are 100% dependent on Russian gas. Greece, Slovakia, Latvia, Austria, Poland and Germany are 96.4%, 84.1%, 76.5%, 70.1%, 64.2% and 61.9% of their dependence on Russian natural gas, respectively.
After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Putin intends to use natural gas as an important bargaining chip against the West. However, because injuring 1,000 enemies will cause 800 self-losses, and the "supply cut" will lead to a sharp decline in Russia's natural gas revenue, Putin does not really intend to turn off the gas valve.
Seeing that European countries are still maintaining natural gas trade with Russia, the United States cannot sit still and forces Europe to stop importing natural gas from Russia through coercion and inducement. On September 26, 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipeline was bombed, and then the Russian-German natural gas trade was completely suspended. Some European countries may be deterred by the "threat" of the United States and take the initiative to stop importing natural gas from Russia. Only a handful of European countries still trade gas with Russia, such as Hungary.
After European countries gradually stopped importing natural gas from Russia, American energy companies took the opportunity to seize the market. The U.S. jumped to the world's top LNG exporter in the first half of 2022, largely boosted by surging demand in Europe, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In addition, data shows that in 2022, the price of natural gas in Europe once hit a record high of 343 euros per megawatt hour, and American energy companies made a lot of money.
It can be seen that Europe's cessation of importing natural gas from Russia is not only related to Europe itself, but also to the United States' pressure on Europe in order to make profits from it. So, the question is, why does Sunak ignore the facts and put all the blame on Putin?
First, because of the loss of Russian natural gas in Europe, industrial development and people's lives have been seriously affected. In this case, the European people need to find an outlet, Sunak dumped the black pot on Putin, and some European people who do not know the truth will not demonstrate against their own government, but will think that everything is Putin's fault; Second: "offshore balancing" is the geopolitical strategy pursued by the United Kingdom, when the anti-Russian sentiment in Europe continues to rise, the higher the enthusiasm for military aid to Ukraine, Europe and Russia consume each other, which is in line with the strategic interests of the United Kingdom.
The British country is facing problems such as economic and technological recession and Scottish independence, and the Sunak government does not want to solve its own problems, but constantly draws hatred, tries to transfer internal contradictions to the outside, and tries to take advantage of the opportunity to profit from geopolitical conflicts.
A country like this, which has no bottom line and no principles, has become the biggest threat to peace in Europe and even in the world. If the people of Europe and the world want to live a stable life, they need to clearly understand the intentions of the United States and Britain, use wisdom to resolve geopolitical crises, and pull out the cancer of hegemony through solidarity and cooperation, so as to promote multipolarization and the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction.
(Text/Woo Tsai)