MOSCOW, July 29 (DPA/EP) –
The Russian gas company Gazprom has indicated this Friday that Moscow will only accept the faulty turbine that was sent to Canada for repair and whose return to Germany was delayed, if it receives guarantees from the European Union and the United Kingdom that sanctions will not be applied. .
“Moscow can only accept the repaired turbine if it receives guarantees from the EU and Britain that Western sanctions are not applied,” the state company’s deputy director, Vitaly Markelov, told Russian state television station Rossiya-24.
For weeks, the gas pipeline had been operating at 40 percent of its capacity due to, according to Russia, the absence of a faulty turbine that was sent to Canada for repair and whose return to Germany was delayed as a result of the sanctions imposed by Ottawa. to Moscow in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
However, on Monday, Gazprom announced that it would cut its current supply in half, so that since Wednesday it has gone on to yield 20 percent, which is about 33 million cubic meters of gas per day, as picked up the Russian news agency TASS.
Canadian authorities specified at the time that the part, reconditioned at a Siemens plant in Montreal, would be delivered to German workers and not directly to Russia, as originally planned.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that the piece had been returned to Germany, a measure that was criticized by the Ukrainian authorities, as they saw in this gesture a weakness in the frontal response to Russia for its operation in Ukraine.
Gazprom announced a month ago that it would reduce by 40 percent the supply it sent through the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, which connects Russia with Germany, as a result of delays in the repairs of several pieces of equipment by the German firm Siemens.
Germany relies heavily on gas from Russia, and the reduction in supplies in recent days is causing great anxiety due to shortages for the coming winter and the effects of any shortages in the industry.
Berlin has accused Moscow of using the turbine as a pretext for power, in retaliation for sanctions imposed by Western governments over Russia’s war against Ukraine, now in its sixth month, while Moscow has blamed broken equipment for outages in gas flows, negating the possibility of an alleged retaliation.
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