Helsinki (AP)-Russia halted gas exports to neighboring Finland on Saturday, a very symbolic move just days after the Scandinavian nation announced it would join NATO and end Finnish imports of natural gas from in Russia, dating back almost 50 years.
The steps taken by Russia’s energy giant Gazprom coincided with an earlier statement after Helsinki refused to pay for gas in rubles, while Russian President Vladimir Putin urged European countries to do so after the attack of Russia Ukraine on the 24th. February.
Finnish state -owned company Gasum said it had “suspended natural gas supplies to Finland under a gas supply contract” in Russia on Saturday morning at 7:00 local time (0400 GMT).
The announcement follows Moscow’s decision to reduce electricity exports to Finland earlier this month and Finnish state-controlled oil company Neste’s earlier decision to replace crude oil imports. of Russia’s crude oil elsewhere.
After decades of energy cooperation that benefited both Helsinki, especially in the case of Russia’s cheap crude oil, and Moscow, Finland’s energy relationship with Russia has now disappeared.
Such a break is easier for Finland than other EU countries. Natural gas is only 5% of Finland’s total energy consumption, a country with 5.5 million. Almost all of this gas comes from Russia and is mainly used by industrial and other companies, where only about 4000 households rely on gas heating.
Gasum said it will now supply its customers with natural gas from other sources through the undersea Balticconnector pipeline that runs between Finland and Estonia and connects the Finnish and Baltic pipelines.
Their Vanhanen, former Finnish prime minister and current speaker of parliament, said Moscow’s decision to shut down gas nearly 50 years after the first delivery from the Soviet Union was first and foremost symbolic.
In an interview with the Finnish public broadcaster on Saturday, Vanhanen said the decision marked “the end of a very important period between Finland, the Soviet Union and Russia, not only in terms of energy, but also symbolically. “.
“This pipeline is unlikely to open,” Vanhanen told YLE, referring to two identical Russian-Finnish pipelines commissioned in 1974.
The first connections from the Finnish grid to the Soviet transmission system were also built in the 1970s, allowing electricity to be imported into Finland if additional capacity was needed.
Vanhanen did not see the Moscow gas embargo as a response to Russia’s attempt to bring Finland into NATO, but as opposed to Western sanctions imposed on Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia has done the same in Finland as it has done in the past in other countries to maintain its credibility,” Vanhanen said, referring to the Kremlin’s requests for gas in rubles.
Finland shares 1,340 kilometers (830 miles) with Russia, the longest of the 27 EU members, and has a history of conflict with its vast eastern neighbor.
After the defeat of two wars in the Soviet Union, in World War II, Finland chose neutrality with stable and pragmatic political and economic relations with Moscow. Large -scale energy cooperation, including nuclear power, between the two countries is one of the visible signs of close bilateral relations between former rivals.
Source: Huffpost
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