Russia's President Vladimir Putin warns against a further reduction in Russian gas supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline According to the Russian state news agency Tass, on the sidelines of a meeting in Tehran.

"We still have a ready route - that's Nord Stream 2. We can put it into operation," Putin offered at the same time.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline was commissioned 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.

The pipeline is also 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 at the end of July because of the necessary repair of "another unit", Putin said according to Tass.

The justification for the throttling with the missing turbine had previously been described by critics as a pretext.

Before that, assurances

Before his threatening remarks about a potential supply cut, Putin had claimed in Tehran that Moscow would honor its commitments “in full”.

"Gazprom has fulfilled its obligations, is fulfilling them now and will continue to fulfill them in the future," Putin said in Tehran.

Against the background of the Ukraine war and Western sanctions, however, Gazprom recently significantly reduced deliveries to Europe.

The turbine repaired in Canada was not handed back to Russia because of Western sanctions as a result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.

Most recently, at the request of Berlin, the Canadian government decided to hand over the Siemens Energy turbine to Germany, so that it can be installed again.

This should give Russia an excuse to permanently stop gas supplies or continue to curtail them, it said.

However, Moscow emphasizes that it has not yet received the machine or the associated documents.

It is conceivable that Moscow wants to force the commissioning of Nord Stream 2.

The pipeline was built in 2021, but the certification documents are still missing.

The permitting process for the line was suspended by Germany after the Russian attack on Ukraine.