The deputy head of the Russian Security Council and former president of the country, Dmitry Medvedev, predicted this Sunday a price of 5,000 euros per thousand cubic meters of gas by the end of this yearrise that Western countries link with the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.
“Due to the increase in gas prices to 3,500 euros per thousand cubic meters, I am forced to revise the projected cost upwards to 5,000 euros by the end of 2022,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Addressing the Heads of State and Government of the countries of the European Union (EU), Medvedev added: “With best wishes.”
The message includes a drawing of a grumpy bearded man with a strong resemblance to Rasputin with a candle in his hand and in the background two oil rigs.
Due to rising prices, even with the current reduction in Russian supply to the European Union, the Russian State can enter 20,000 million dollars in a quarter for the export of gasaccording to expert calculations.
The governments of several countries of the The EU have announced energy saving programs in the face of the dramatic increase in gas priceswhich topped $3,500 this week.
In turn, Medvedev in an interview with French television assured that Moscow does not want to close the gas tap, but that “now Europe has become a channel of American politics“.
“We have supplied gas to Europe for decades. Europe was satisfied and so were we. That means that the relationship was pragmatic,” he assured the LCI channel.
He stressed that, despite moving to charge gas in rubles after Western sanctions, Moscow has always been willing to pump gas in the contracted volumes.
“If they bend our arms, if we are prohibited from payments or if the supply of the repaired turbines or the launch of the Nord Stream 2 (pipeline) is foregone, then those kinds of supplies will not reach the volumes that they expect Western countries,” he warned.
In addition, he considered The possibility of US liquefied gas replacing Russian natural gas is “unrealistic”since “pipeline gas is much cheaper and liquefied gas is tremendously expensive”.
“It has come to the point that (German) Chancellor Oleg Scholz traveled to Canada to reach an agreement on liquefied gas supplies motivated by the desire that it is better to buy gas from a nearby and democratic country than from Russia. Well, what I bought it,” he said.
According to the international press, Russia can afford to suspend gas supplies to Europe for a year with hardly any lossesif the current levels of oil prices and exports are maintained
In a newspaper article, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and his “barbaric invasion” of Ukraine for the global spike in energy costs.
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