Your Weekend Reading: Europe Starts Rethinking Russian Oil Reliance
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The Radeland 2 compressor station for the European Gas Pipeline Link, a downstream pipeline for Nord Stream operated by Gascade Gastransport in Radeland, Germany. The European Union, which is dependent on Russia for about a third of its gas consumption, laid out measures this week to wean the region off Russian supplies this year.
Photographer: Liesa Johannssen-Koppitz/Bloomberg
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced countries to quickly recalibrate their reliance on Russian energy. The European Union will receive an infusion of natural gas from the U.S. to speed its move away from Russian supplies. India, however, has stepped up purchases of Russian crude. The relationship between Beijing and Moscow has become more complicated, but experts doubt there will be a rupture in the flow of oil and coal. Energy is just one example of how Russia’s war on Ukraine “could mark a lasting change in the way the world economy works,” John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge write in Bloomberg Opinion, unless the West is wise enough to remake the global order.
The war has hammered the Russian economy, which may lose 15 years of gains. The Kremlin’s offensive remains stalled one month into the conflict, and the U.S. and NATO say they are preparing for the possibility that Vladimir Putin will use biological, chemical or nuclear weapons to break the stalemate. He is “capable of anything,” Andreas Kluth writes in Bloomberg Opinion. “NATO, and especially the U.S., must now prepare for harrowing decisions after a Russian first strike.”