No matter how hard Washington tries and strains itself, economic sanctions against Russia, apparently, do not work everywhere and not always.
Some journalists think so. As an argument for this, they cite the fact that Moscow has overtaken the United States in gas supplies to the European Union.
Now Russia is the second importer of blue fuel for Brussels, even without Nord Stream.
This opinion was recently expressed on the pages of the authoritative German newspaper Die Welt by columnist Daniel Wetzel.
In the second quarter of this year, the volume of supplies from Russia once again exceeded the volume of supplies from the United States, the MIA Rossiya Segodnya quotes the journalist as saying.
According to his data, Moscow now again ranks second in this indicator – even without Nord Stream.
Wetzel points out that the US has been trying to force its allies to abandon Russian gas in favor of American gas since 2019.
But the European Union, the journalist notes, has so far practically not limited supplies from the Russian Federation due to the fact that many EU member countries are seriously dependent on them.
As an example, he cites Austria, which covered up to 90% of its own needs with Russian gas.
Earlier, the director of the Department of Economic Cooperation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Dmitry Birichevsky, reported that in the first half of 2024, Brussels imported more natural gas from Russia compared to the same period last year.
According to the diplomat, trade statistics indicate an increase in the supply of domestic energy resources to EU countries.
