Pjotr Sauer
Russia will cut off gas supplies to the Netherlands on Tuesday, the Dutch-backed trader GasTerra said on Monday after the company refused to pay supplier Gazprom in roubles, in the latest escalation of the energy payments row with the west.
Gazprom Export has demanded that European countries pay for Russian gas supplies in roubles because of sanctions imposed over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Gazprom had already cut off gas to Finland, Poland and Bulgaria after they refused to comply with the new payment terms.
GasTerra, which buys and trades gas on behalf of the Dutch government, said in a statement that it had “anticipated” Russia’s moves to cut off gas and has bought “elsewhere” some of the 2 billion cubic metres of gas it had expected to receive from Gazprom through October.
Around 44% of Dutch energy usage is based on gas, but only about 15% of Dutch gas comes from Russia, according to government figures. The Dutch government earlier announced the country’s plans to stop using Russian fossil fuels by the end of the year.
European nations are divided over how to respond to Moscow’s demand that all payments for the gas should be made in the local currency. Germany and Italy have reportedly told their companies they could open rouble accounts to keep buying Russian gas without breaching sanctions.
Lysychansk is one of two cities that was hit hard today in the Luhansk oblast of Ukraine – the bombing of the other city, Sievierodonetsk, is so intense that the casualties cannot be assessed.
Here are some scenes from Lysychansk today:
A woman walks away from her burning garage after shelling in the city of Lysychansk. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty ImagesUkrainian servicemen in Lysychansk. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty ImagesA woman walks in front of a building destroyed by a strike. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty ImagesThe woman whose garage was shelled in Lysychansk. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty ImagesBoris Yeltsin’s son-in-law quits as unpaid Putin adviserValentin Yumashev, the son-in-law of the former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, quit his role as unpaid adviser to Vladimir Putin last month, Reuters is reporting.
Though the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and Yumashev did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Lyudmila Telen, first deputy executive director of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center, told Reuters that Yumashev had given up his Kremlin adviser role in April.
“It was his initiative,” she said, when asked why he left the position. Another person, who spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, also confirmed that Yumashev had quit in April.
Yumashev, who is married to Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatyana, represented one of the few remaining links in Putin’s administration to Yeltsin’s rule – a period of liberal reforms and an opening-up of Russia towards the west. However, insiders said he did not play a major role as Putin’s adviser.
Under Yeltsin, who was president from 1991 to 1999, Yumashev also served as a Kremlin adviser and later as head of the presidential administration.
Summary Russia is considering paying Eurobond holders by applying the mechanism it uses to process payments for its gas in roubles. The scheme would allow Moscow to pay bondholders while bypassing western payment infrastructure. Investors, however, said the move would not enable Russia to avoid a historic default on debt. In talks with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said if sanctions were lifted, then Russia could “export significant volumes of fertilisers and agricultural products”. The new US ambassador to Ukraine has arrived in Kyiv, the Guardian understands, a symbolic move after the US withdrew all diplomats from the country before the Russian invasion in February. EU leaders failed to agree on a Russian oil import ban before the two-day summit in Brussels. While the leaders of the 27 countries will agree in principle to an oil embargo, the details of their draft conclusions are yet to be decided. Russia will stop supplying gas to the Netherlands as of tomorrow after the government-backed trader GasTerra refused to pay supplier Gazprom in roubles. About 44% of Dutch energy usage is based on gas, but only about 15% of Dutch gas comes from Russia, according to government figures. A French journalist, Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, was killed after an evacuation car was hit near the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “I share the pain of the family, relatives and colleagues of Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff, to whom I send my condolences.” Russian troops entered the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk. The regional governor, Serhiy Gaidai, has described the fighting as “very fierce”. The US president, Joe Biden, has said the US will not send Ukraine rocket systems that can reach into Russia. The comments followed reports that the Biden administration was preparing to send advanced long-range rocket systems to Kyiv. That is it from me, Geneva Abdul. I am handing you on to Vivian Ho.
The European Union is edging towards a partial ban on Russian oil, as leaders attempt to find a compromise to placate the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has been holding up a deal on the latest sanctions against Russia.
Arriving at the leaders’ summit, Orbán said ‘the pipeline solution is not bad’ but insisted his country needed guarantees that it could obtain oil from other sources if there was an ‘accident’ at the Druzhba pipeline, which runs through war-torn Ukraine.
Watch Orbán here: