L’shutdown continues. Gazprom announced on Friday, September 2, that the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, crucial for deliveries in Europe, would be “completely” stopped until a turbine is repaired, when it was to resume service after a maintenance operation. For its part, the Kremlin assured, this Monday, September 5, that the stoppage of Russian gas deliveries to Germany was the sole fault of the West, because their sanctions prevent the maintenance of gas infrastructures.
“The problems with pumping (of gas) arose because of the sanctions of Western states. There is no other reason for these problems,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov a few days after the shutdown of Nord Stream, a crucial pipeline for supplying Europeans, who fear an energy crisis this winter.
“The West is responsible”
“It is these sanctions (…) that have led to the situation that we are seeing now,” he again denounced during a telephone press briefing. The Kremlin spokesman also “categorically rejected” Westerners’ “relentless attempts” to “shift responsibility and blame” onto Moscow. “The West – in this case the European Union, Canada and the UK – is responsible for the fact that the situation has reached such a point,” he added.
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Dmitry Peskov has once again justified the halt in Russian gas deliveries to Germany via the Nord Stream gas pipeline, announced last Friday, by the “serious maintenance” that, according to him, the last turbine that was working until then requires. . “It works badly, breakdowns occur there. This causes the flow to stop, ”he judged. The Russian giant Gazprom for its part indicated on Friday that it had discovered “oil leaks” in the turbine during a maintenance operation at a compressor station located in Russia.
Moscow claims in particular that the Western sanctions taken following the Russian offensive in Ukraine prevent the return of a Siemens turbine which had been sent to Canada to be repaired. Germany, where the turbine is located, assures that it is Russia that is blocking the return of this key piece. The cessation of gas flows between Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea has further accentuated in recent days the fears of Europeans of having to face an unprecedented energy crisis this winter.