Europe may still be grappling with a heat wave, but already it's bracing for President Vladimir Putin to squeeze a crucial natural gas pipeline and force millions to ration heating this winter.
Governments and analysts have warned this week that the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline — Europe’s main artery for natural gas, 45% of which it gets from Russia — could be the locus of an energy war as Russia responds to Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday, adding Europe had to prepare for the worst.
Gas started flowing again Thursday after a routine 10-day stoppage but only at the 40% capacity of the pre-maintenance period. Unless Europe weans itself off its reliance on Russia, experts and officials say Putin will dangle this sword of Damocles over the heads of his Western neighbors — and with it the risk of economic, political and even societal unrest that would weaken the pro-Ukraine alliance.
“This winter is going to be a stern test of nerves in some European capitals,” said John Lough, an associate fellow at the London think tank Chatham House. “Russia weaponizing gas as part of its hybrid war strategy to try to persuade Western countries to reduce their support for Ukraine.”
The central problem, according to industry analysts, is that Europe has allowed itself to become dependent on Russia. Governments here have not allowed human rights concerns to stop multibillion-euro deals with Kremlin-controlled energy companies.
Germany has engaged the most.
A now infamous photo from 2011 shows then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel grinning alongside the Russian president at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, turning on the taps for the Nord Stream 1. It cost 7.4 billion euros (around the same amount in U.S. dollars at today’s rates) and has enough capacity to supply half of Germany’s gas, although some of it is sent elsewhere.
Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, went on to become a board member of Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft and was nominated to the board of Gazprom, the gas giant and main shareholder in Nord Stream.
Schroeder, a friend of Putin's, only resigned from Rosneft and declined Gazprom's offer after months of pressure, including being stripped of his post-office parliamentary privileges.
Nord Stream 1 was controversial when it opened, with Ukraine protesting that it was an attempt by Russia to bypass its former Soviet neighbors that previous pipelines had crossed.
Rather than relent, in 2018 Germany granted Gazprom approval to begin construction on the Nord Stream 2 — an even bigger pipeline running in parallel. This, after Moscow invaded Crimea, increased crackdowns on political dissent and meddled in Western elections.
Russian's invasion of Ukraine in late February served as a belated reckoning for European capitals.