As gas prices skyrocket and share prices like the euro plummet, Moscow insists technical reasons are responsible for the gas supply halt. The Kremlin reports that these occurred as a result of western sanctions. The EU wants to shift its responsibility.
The Kremlin has blamed the West for stopping gas supplies to Germany. The problems arose "because of the sanctions imposed by Western states, there is no other reason for this," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in Moscow. "We see endless attempts to somehow shift the responsibility for what is happening on ourselves, we categorically reject these attempts and insist that the collective West - in this case the EU, Canada and Great Britain - is to blame for the situation becoming the current one point has arrived," he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Peskow emphasized that this was not an "unfounded" claim. The statement is based on concrete facts about the turbines, their repair and transport, according to the Kremlin spokesman. He hopes that the last remaining turbine at the Portovaya compressor station can somehow be repaired, Peskov said.
The Russian Gazprom group suspended gas deliveries to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline indefinitely last week. The delivery stop, which began on Wednesday, was initially justified by regular maintenance work on a compressor station and was supposed to last until Saturday. On Friday evening, Gazprom then announced that there was an oil leak from a turbine.
According to Peskow, the last remaining turbine is not working properly, "there are breakdowns that stop the flow of gas." There is also a dispute over a Siemens turbine that was brought to Canada for repairs and is now in Germany. Even in the case of the return transport of this turbine, Moscow holds the sanctions of the West responsible. Germany, on the other hand, argues that Russia is blocking the return transport.
