Vladimir Putin has vehemently denied Russia is limiting gas supplies to Europe to drive up prices but offered no indication that there would be swift action to relieve tension in volatile energy markets.
The Russian president told a conference in Moscow on Wednesday that accusations of state-owned Gazprom using energy as a “weapon” to speed up approval of the recently built Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany were “politically motivated blather”.
Putin said Russia was meeting all requests for gas supplies from Europe, adding that Gazprom had already exceeded its contractual obligations to customers in the bloc. But he stressed that further supplies depended on requests from the EU — who, he implied, would have to buy gas on Russia’s terms.