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Originally Posted by Ducay
Such a fragile balance as EU has to ramp up sanctions, but don't want to force Russia go nuclear (aka force shutting off gas sales, which would be equally as rough on Russia).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
Yeah, I can't see them shutting off the gas completely as it would hurt them as much as Europe. I could see them shutting off portions though. The 3 northern pipelines that go to northern and western Europe and the far southern route through Turkey are likely all too lucrative to shut off.
The line under the Black Sea and through Bulgaria that feeds the Balkans (including EU and NATO countries Bulgaria, Slovenia and Croatia) is likely one they could afford to shut down for a while and given the fragile state of the economies there, it would be a good pressure point from their perspective. It would however screw over their biggest and pretty much only European ally (Serbia), but Russia is only in it for themselves at this point.
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Russia cuts natural gas deliveries to Poland by more than 20%
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Poland has said the volume of gas it has received so far this week from Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is down by at least 20%.
Some European countries believe Moscow may use a disruption of gas to Europe as a trump card in its confrontation with the west over Ukraine. The row has already brought relations between Moscow and the west to their lowest ebb since the cold war.
Ukraine's gas transport monopoly Ukrtransgaz was quoted by a Russian news agency as saying Gazprom was limiting flows to Poland to disrupt supplies of gas in the opposite direction, from Poland into Ukraine.
Kiev is already cut off from Russian gas in a pricing dispute and depends on these "reverse flows" to supply homes and businesses with gas.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...poland-ukraine