Re: Why is natural gas still flowing from Russia to Europe across Ukraine?

On Sat, 17 Aug 2024, JAB wrote:

Why is natural gas still flowing from Russia to Europe across Ukraine?
>
It's one of the more improbable aspects of Russia's invasion of
Ukraine: Even after 2 1/2 years of war and repeated rounds of
sanctions, Russian natural gas keeps flowing through Ukraine's
pipeline network to customers in Europe.
...
...
Before the war, Russia supplied some 40% of Europe's natural gas
through pipelines.
...
Europe viewed the Russian cutoff as energy blackmail and has outlined
plans to completely eliminate Russian gas imports by 2027
...
The European Union has come up with a plan to end imports of Russian
fossil fuels entirely by 2027. But progress has been uneven lately.
...
...
Meanwhile EU members Romania and Hungary have made gas deals with
Turkey, which imports gas from Russia. Armida van Rijd, senior
research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in
London, says that "Russian gas is being laundered through Azerbaijan
and Turkey to meet continued high European demands."
>
She wrote that European efforts to reduce use of Russian gas are
"impressive" so far. But she added that "the political reality is that
it is extremely difficult for European countries to fully diversify
their energy supplies, when many are already struggling with high
inflation and a cost-of-living crisis."
>
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-natural-gas-f9f00df7195d01404f8cb2a43152a8b1
>

Can add to that that gas is still passing through swedish harbours. Also, I've heard that many people are earning a lot of money in the *-stan countries helping russian business men escape sanctions.
My opinion is that european efforts are naive and feeble and that they are greatly benefiting india and china.
Europe needs to move to a white list system, where the default is blacklisting, unless you can prove that you are not doing business with russia directly or indirectly.
In addition to that, europe needs to move to a free market system so that the market can help with energy independence and lower cost of living and inflation.