Why Russia has long supplied gas through Ukraine

Vienna The underwater explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines near Bornholm not only shake the European energy markets. They now also cover Ukraine. On Wednesday there were increasing indications that the attacks are part of Moscow’s strategy to radically cut gas supplies to Europe: the state-controlled Russian company Gazprom threatened to stop its supplies through Ukraine altogether.

Superficially it is about a legal dispute, but actually about the war. After their invasion, Russian troops occupied the town of Novopskov in the Luhansk Oblast, where the Soyuz gas pipeline reaches Ukrainian territory. Since the national grid operator can no longer exercise any control over it, since May it has been demanding that the flows be shifted northwards, where the Brattwo (Brotherhood) line runs through territory controlled by Kyiv.