EDITOR’S PICK
EKO HOT BLOG reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Western sanctions could lead to possible “catastrophic consequences” on the global energy market.
Addressing leaders of Russia’s oil and gas industry, Putin, who casts the sanctions imposed on Russia as a declaration of economic war, said that Western calls to reduce reliance on Russian energy had made global markets “feverish” with spikes in oil and gas.
Sanctions restrictions on Russia cause much more damage to those countries that impose them,” Putin told industry figures including Rosneft Chief Executive Igor Sechin and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak.
“Further use of sanctions may lead to even more severe – without exaggeration, even catastrophic – consequences on the global energy market.”
Putin’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine and the West’s imposition of the most severe sanctions in modern history have undermined the assumptions of the energy and commodities markets – while crimping global growth.
As Putin grapples with a major war, the biggest geopolitical crisis and the biggest Russian economic challenge since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, the 69-year-old Kremlin chief has repeatedly signalled he is in no mood to back down.
Energy is one area where the Kremlin still holds sway – and European powers including Germany fear he may be about to cut supplies.
FURTHER READING:
Russia is the world’s second-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the world’s largest wheat exporter. Europe imports about 40 percent of its gas and 30 percent of its oil from Russia.
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