Russian President Vladimir Putin is leveraging the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany to weaken Ukraine's "security posture," the CEO of the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) said in an opinion piece published Monday by The Kyiv Independent.
Sergiy Makogon said that Putin, whom he described as a "dictator," has used energy as a "weapon" against Europe for some time. He wrote that GTSOU and Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz sent requests late last month to Germany's government to review decisions made in regard to Nord Stream 1. They believe "Putin's favorite pipeline" shouldn't be delivering gas to Europe and demand that its operations be shut down, he wrote.
"Russian artillery is leveling Ukrainian cities, the civilian death toll in Mariupol alone is feared to be in the [tens] of thousands," Makogon wrote. "At the same time, the continued Russian gas imports are stabbing us in the back. As long as the diversionary pipelines, like Nord Stream 1 and TurkStream, are kept in operation, Ukraine's security posture remains much weaker than it could otherwise be."
Makogon's calls for halted operations at the Nord Stream 1 pipeline are the newest push for Europe to distance itself from Russian energy amid the internationally condemned war in Ukraine. Russia, the second-largest natural gas producer in the world as of 2022, according to the World Population Review, is already facing a U.S. oil embargo, a partial ban from the European Union set to go into effect by the end of the year and a halting of the $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline project that would have significantly increased the supply of Russian gas into Europe.