Energy Moscow: gas supply stop to Austria is justified

According to the Foreign Ministry, Russia considers the suspension of gas supplies to Austria to be fully justified. "We have no intention of being charitable in this case," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.

Russia cut off gas supplies to Austria last Saturday. The background to this is a legal dispute between the partly state-owned Austrian energy company OMV and the Russian company Gazprom over supply interruptions.

According to the Russian state news agency Tass, Zakharova said that there were objective reasons for the reduced supply in September 2022. She cited the blowing up of the Nord Stream Baltic Sea pipeline and the shutdown of transit through the Yamal-Europe pipeline. These factors had been ignored.

Moscow itself had already completely stopped gas deliveries through the Yamal-Europe pipeline in spring 2022. The reason given at the time was that Poland did not want to switch payment to roubles.

An arbitration court awarded OMV 230 million euros in damages in the legal dispute. The company wanted to offset the sum against current Gazprom deliveries, as it announced. However, it was prepared for Gazprom to react with a delivery stop. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer also wrote on Platform X on Friday evening before the delivery stop: "No one will freeze in winter, no apartment will stay cold."

SDA