BRUSSELS — Russia’s state-controlled gas company, Gazprom, shut off the supply of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria on Wednesday, and the Kremlin insisted other countries would face the same fate if they refused to pay in rubles — moves that marked a major escalation in the standoff between Russia and Europe over the war in Ukraine.
Although both Poland and Bulgaria secured enough natural gas from other E.U. countries to keep the lights on for now, it is not clear how the bloc would manage additional cutoffs, especially if Russia stopped supplying major customers Germany and Italy.
Successive cutoffs could leave major European economies scrambling to find new suppliers and send energy prices soaring around the world.
On Wednesday, E.U. officials said Russia’s actions amounted to “blackmail.”
“The announcement by Gazprom that it is unilaterally stopping delivery of gas to customers in Europe is yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. “This is unjustified and unacceptable.”
This was the first supply disruption since Russian President Vladimir Putin first threatened that “unfriendly countries” would have to pay for natural gas in rubles — a requirement that may have been designed to both help the Russian economy and pressure E.U. countries into breaking ranks and violating the bloc’s sanctions regime.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday dismissed accusations of blackmail, saying Russia remained a reliable partner, even as he warned of more shut-offs to come.
Gazprom said it had stopped supplying natural gas to Poland’s PGNiG gas company and Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz because they had not complied with an order to pay in Russian currency. The suspension would persist from starting Wednesday and last “until the payments are made” in rubles, Gazprom said.
The shut-off also comes a day after Berlin signaled it might be able to back an E.U. embargo on Russian oil if Poland could help fill Germany’s oil supply gap.
The E.U. is trying to wean itself from Russian energy, with a coal embargo already in place. But the oil embargo is still under debate. And dependence on gas has been an even thornier issue.
On Wednesday, European officials tried to reassure citizens that the immediate fallout had been contained. “There will be no shortage of gas in Polish homes,” Poland’s climate minister, Anna Moskwa, said on Twitter. Bulgaria’s government promised there would be no domestic restrictions on consumption.
At a news conference in Brussels, von der Leyen confirmed that both Poland and Bulgaria were getting gas from other E.U. countries. The bloc has made “contingency plans” for cutoffs, she said, and officials will meet soon to discuss additional moves.
If and how the cutoff would affect gas moving through Poland and Bulgaria to other E.U. countries was not immediately clear. Gazprom said that if PGNiG or Bulgargaz were to siphon off gas intended for third countries, the supplies for those countries “will be reduced.”
Finding alternative suppliers would be far more difficult if Russia expands the number of big countries it cuts off.
A similar shut-off can’t be ruled out for Germany, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Wednesday, warning that he would expect such a move to trigger a recession in Europe’s largest economy.
“I take this very seriously,” he said, adding that it shows Russia is following through on its threats. But it’s important not to succumb to “blackmail,” he said.
Germany has been trying to diversify its gas supplies but still relies on Russia for 35 percent of its imports.
“The situation has been tense for months,” Habeck said. “But payments will continue to be made in euros.”
The economy ministry on Wednesday cut its growth forecast for the year to 2.2 percent, down from the 3.6 percent it had expected at the beginning of the year. Those numbers do not figure in a gas embargo or Russia blocking supplies, Habeck said.
“If we add those into the calculations, we would see an economic recession,” he said.
The Russian move, combined with Emmanuel Macron’s reelection in France, have accelerated conversations among the Western allies about how to reduce oil revenue flowing to Russia.
Despite a U.S. embargo on oil, gas and coal, and the European coal embargo, Russia is making about as much money from fossil fuel sales as it was making before the invasion, according to estimates by the Wednesday Group, a team of experts tracking Russian energy sales. That amounts to about $1 billion a day, and possibly $1.5 billion a day, in revenue.
One idea discussed between the Europeans and Americans would be to put all money for Russian energy purchases into a closely monitored escrow account that could be accessed by Moscow only for specific purchases, such as food and medicine, according to two people familiar with the talks.
Another idea would be to coordinate a reduction in the amount the Europeans pay for Russian oil, effectively gambling that if the Europeans insist on paying less, Russia would be forced to collect the lower revenue, the people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters not yet made public.
The talks had been on hold until the results of the French election, but Macron’s victory on Sunday allowed the allies to push on. If any of the measures were implemented, the United States may also threaten “secondary sanctions” — sanctions on third-party countries, like China or India, that undermine Europe’s coordinated attempts to reduce Russian oil revenue.
“An escrow for fossil fuel exports could be good if you really had a lockbox so that money could not be used to buy guns and ammunition,” said Simon Johnson, a researcher at MIT who is part of the Wednesday Group.
There appeared to be fresh momentum for E.U. dealmaking.
Russia’s latest moves will only speed up the E.U.’s goal to “phase out” of Russian energy, Eduard Heger, prime minister of Slovakia, tweeted Wednesday. Norbert Röttgen, a lawmaker from Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, said an oil and gas embargo is now a matter of “E.U. solidarity.”
During a visit to Warsaw on Tuesday, Habeck said Berlin was days away from striking a deal that could enable it to find an alternative for the 12 percent of the country’s oil that still comes from Russia.
The potential deal between Germany and Poland would secure supplies for Germany’s Schwedt refinery, which is operated by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Rosneft, from Poland’s Plock pipeline.
Jens Suedekum, a professor of international economics at the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics and an adviser to the German government, said the timing of Moscow’s Polish cutoff points to possible retaliation for the deal.
“Putin’s decision to cut off Poland from gas was, basically, a revenge act against the Plock pipeline deal,” Suedekum tweeted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the European Union to cancel its “blood money” payments for energy from Moscow.
Ukrainian officials were quick to criticize Gazprom’s decision, saying the move was retaliation against the E.U. for its staunch backing of Kyiv — especially Poland, which has been particularly vocal in its support and has been a hub for arms and supplies flowing into Ukraine.
“Russia is trying to break the unity of our allies,” said Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff. “That is why the E.U. needs to be united and impose an embargo on energy resources, depriving Russians of their energy weapons.”
Officials and experts have long worried that the E.U. is too dependent on Moscow and have warned that the relationship could be weaponized. The two countries targeted Tuesday are especially vulnerable: Poland gets more than 45 percent of its natural gas from Russia; and Bulgaria, more than 70 percent, according to E.U. data.
The E.U. last month pledged to wean off Russian fossil fuels by 2030, starting by cutting gas imports by two-thirds by the end of this year.
On Tuesday, some analysts said Gazprom’s move could expedite the severing of ties. Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, called it “yet another sign of Russia’s politicization of existing agreements,” and he predicted it would “only accelerate European efforts to move away from Russian energy supplies.”
Morris reported from Berlin, Stein and Thebault from Washington and Pietsch from Seoul. Jeff Stein in Washington, Frederik Seeler in Berlin, Quentin Ariès in Brussels, Annabelle Chapman in London and Irynka Hromotska in Columbia, Missouri, contributed to this report.
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