Vladimir Putin has blamed the west for disruptions to the energy market and spiralling heating costs, claiming that desperate Europeans had begun to stock up on firewood ahead of the cold winter months.
The Russian president has sought to deflect blame for the oil and gas crisis sparked by his invasion of Ukraine, and tried to pressure European governments to drop sanctions against Moscow.
“Ordinary Europeans are suffering,” the Russian president told an energy forum in Moscow on Wednesday, “the population, like in the middle ages, has begun to stock up on firewood for the winter”.
To Putin’s anger, major world economies are discussing a cap on Russian oil prices. “[With] their cavalier decisions,” he said, “some western politicians are destroying the global market economy and are in fact posing a threat to the wellbeing of billions of people”.
At the same conference, the head of the Russian state-owned gas monopoly supplier Gazprom warned that Europe could freeze this winter.
“Winter can be relatively warm, but one week or even five days will be abnormally cold and it’s possible that whole towns and lands, God forbid, will freeze,” Alexey Miller said.
International concern over energy supplies was further heightened on Wednesday after a leak was reported on the Druzhba oil pipeline in Poland, which links Russia and Germany.
“The cause of the incident is not known for the moment. Pumping in the affected line was immediately stopped. Line 2 of the pipeline is functioning normally,” the Polish operator Pern said.
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said it is too early to say whether the leak was accidental damage or caused by sabotage.
“Many steps point straight to the Kremlin, but we want to be very responsible and only then confirm our assumptions,” he told Polish state-owned radio broadcaster PR3.
The incident comes after four leaks were discovered in the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany at the start of October, causing international alarm and claims of sabotage.
German authorities have said they believe that highly explosive detonations were used. The EU, Nato and the governments of Poland, Sweden and Denmark have all said they believe the leaks were caused deliberately.
The leak in Poland on an underground segment of the Druzhba pipeline was detected late on Tuesday near the village of Żurawice about 110 miles to the west of Warsaw.
A Pern spokesperson, Katarzyna Krasińska, told AFP that firefighters were pumping out the spilled oil, “which could take several hours”.
The Russian oil pipeline operator, Transneft, said its Polish counterpart had notified it of the leak. “Yes, we received a message … We have no information as to how long it will take to repair the damage,” the Transneft vice-president, Sergei Andronov, said, according to the Interfax news agency. “From their end at the moment, oil continues to be accepted,” he added.
The pipeline mainly supplies two refineries in Schwedt and Leuna in Germany. The Schwedt refinery, which is close to the Polish border and supplies 90% of the oil consumed in Berlin and the surrounding region, including Berlin-Brandenburg international airport, is the subject of a dispute over its management and control.
Poland has said it will stop supplying the refinery, which is majority owned by Rosneft, unless the Russian firm is removed as a shareholder.
Last month, the German government said it had taken control of the refinery – and the other German operations of Rosneft – to secure energy supplies. It put Rosneft Deutschland under a trusteeship of the German industry regulator, but Rosneft still holds 54% of the company’s shares.
Schwedt previously received most of its crude from Russia, and Berlin is now looking to other countries for supplies.
The Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline network was started in the 1960s and covers 3,400 miles, pumping oil from the Urals to Europe through two main branches via Belarus and Ukraine.
