2022.. A bone-breaking war between Russia and the West in the energy markets

While the fire of fighting was raging on the battlefield between Russia on the one hand and Ukraine's allies from the West on the other, another battle was raging in the global energy markets, which witnessed a scarcity of supplies and the accompanying rise in prices.

Moscow - the world's first source of natural gas - accounted for 40% of the European market's consumption of natural gas before the war, while it represented 25% of the European Union's oil supplies.

With the outbreak of the war, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to use the energy weapon to bring Europe to its knees by blocking supplies at times and raising costs at other times, while European countries sought to reduce their dependence on Russian energy sources in an effort to reduce the revenues that enter Russian coffers to weaken the Russian economy in a bone-breaking battle between the two parties. On the other hand, Russia benefited from the rise in petroleum prices at the beginning of the crisis, until the price of a barrel of oil reached $140 a barrel last March.

The energy war started early, with European countries signing a number of sanctions that targeted the Russian economy and weakened the ruble currency. Unfriendly natural gas in rubles.

The decision that Putin later used as an excuse to cut off energy supplies to Europe, and on April 27, Bulgaria and Poland were the first victims, with Gazprom announcing the cut off of supplies to them for non-payment in the ruble, followed by the Netherlands and Finland in May, and that included until September of the same year a temporary closure of the Nord Stream line due to maintenance.

In a July report, the International Monetary Fund revealed the suffering of Eastern European countries from reducing gas supplies to 40%.

Mutual accusations of bombing the Nord Stream

In July, Russia shut down the Nord Stream line for ten days, allegedly for maintenance, and shortly after reopening it, Gazprom halved the amount it supplied, to 20 million cubic metres.

And the Russian company Gazprom returned and announced in August that the Nord Stream line had been completely disrupted due to maintenance work, accusing the German company Siemens of obstructing the import of equipment.

In September 2022, the energy war entered a new chapter with leakage incidents in the Nord Stream line, the first gas supplier to European countries. The pipelines were not working due to differences between Russia and the European Union, but they were full of natural gas, and on September 26, 2022, a gas leak occurred in the two Nord lines. Stream 1 and 2, amid accusations exchanged between Russia and the West of being behind the incident.

At the time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "This is a tremendous opportunity to remove dependence on Russian energy once and for all."