Russia has long had a reputation for using its energy exports as a geopolitical bargaining chip. New statements by Kremlin chief Putin could feed this suspicion – and that shortly before an important date.

Amidst the energy crisis, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin warns Europe against further cuts in Russian gas supplies. If Russia does not get back a turbine for the Nord Stream 1 Baltic Sea pipeline that was repaired in Canada, the daily throughput capacity of the pipeline threatens to fall again significantly at the end of July, Putin said on Wednesday night, according to the Russian state news agency Tass. “We still have a finished route – that’s Nord Stream 2. We can put it into operation,” Putin added.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline – the most important gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – was put into operation in 2011 and has a capacity of around 55 billion cubic meters per year. Since June, however, Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom has reduced gas deliveries to Germany by more than half the daily maximum to 67 million cubic meters. This was justified with the missing turbine from Siemens Energy, which Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) criticized as a pretense. The pipeline, which is more than 1,200 kilometers long, is currently completely shut down for annual maintenance work – until Thursday as planned.

If Russia does not get the repaired turbine back, the daily throughput capacity of the pipeline threatens to fall further to 33 million cubic meters per day at the end of July because of the necessary repair of “another unit”, Putin said according to Tass. He made the statement on the sidelines of a top-level meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish Head of State Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Tehran, which was officially primarily about the situation in civil war-torn Syria.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow gradually shut off the gas to several European countries supporting Kyiv. Critics therefore also classified the justification for the delivery throttling with the missing turbine as a pretext.

The turbine repaired in Canada was held back for a long time because of Western sanctions as a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and was not returned to Russia. However, at the request of Berlin, the Canadian government finally decided to hand over the turbine to Germany, so that it can be installed again. According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, this is intended to give Russia an excuse to permanently stop gas supplies or continue to reduce them. According to the German government, the delivery of the device is exempt from the EU sanctions against Russia because these are not aimed at gas transit.

It was said from Moscow that neither the machine nor the documents belonging to it had arrived. In addition, Putin’s statements in Tehran suggest that even after the maintenance work is completed and even if the turbine is installed, the pipeline may not be brought back up to full capacity. It is conceivable that Moscow wants to force the commissioning of Nord Stream 2 in this way.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was highly controversial even before the Ukraine war, was completed in 2021. After the invasion, Germany suspended the permitting process for operating the line. In view of the energy crisis, Putin had stated that deliveries via Nord Stream 2 could lower the price level again and ease the situation overall.

SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert emphasized on Tuesday that the federal government had done everything to ensure that there were “no longer any technical arguments for the Russian side” not to put the pipeline back on the grid, also by providing the turbine that had previously been serviced in Canada . But no one would “want to put their hand in the fire for political forces associated with Vladimir Putin,” he told Deutschlandfunk.

Russia has long had a reputation for using its energy supplies as a geopolitical bargaining chip. Against this background in particular, the EU Commission is presenting an emergency plan on Wednesday as to how Europe can prepare for an impending gas shortage in winter. “We are assuming the worst possible scenario in our winter preparation plans,” said a spokesman for the EU Commission on Tuesday. Among other things, it is expected that the Brussels plan stipulates that public buildings, offices and commercial buildings should be heated to a maximum of 19 degrees from autumn and that there could be mandatory gas saving targets.