Well.
Last Saturday, May 21, 2022, domestic Gazprom has now officially confirmed the complete halt of Russian natural gas supplies to the Finnish operator Gasum due to Finland's refusal to pay in rubles, according to a new scheme established by the decree of the Russian president.
At the same time, we recall that on March 23, Vladimir Putin ordered (the corresponding decree was signed by him, however, a little later) on the transfer of payment for Russian pipeline gas supplies to the EU countries and other "unfriendly states", which introduced restrictive measures against Russia against the backdrop of a special military operations in Ukraine, in rubles.
With a quite pragmatic, by the way, and quite an officially declared goal - to abandon the use of dollars and euros in settlements.
And thereby secure the funds of Russian suppliers from the alleged arrest - the Russian leadership, you understand, had grounds for such fears.
At least, tasks of this kind, in particular, were directly declared by some, far from ordinary members of the US Democratic Party (I'm not talking about the former Ambassador McFaul, who seems to have completely turned into a freak, there were more serious people there): Russians, from their point of view, should be obliged to supply gas and oil to Western countries.
But it would be simply impossible to pay the Russians for the supplied fuel.
The scheme, of course, is very inspiring for consumers: American Democrats are generally smart people in this sense.
It remained only to persuade the Russians, even if it would be, let's say, a little more difficult.
And even funnier.
But even then it became clear that, excuse me, this was not what one would expect from these figures.
To the question of the quality of modern Western elites, by the way, but this is not a topic for this conversation.
So in that particular situation, it was better not to risk it, but to immediately convert it into rubles.
At least transfer pipeline gas to the ruble zone.
The logistics of which, unlike the same oil or LNG, is tied, roughly speaking, to iron.
And here it is better to immediately understand what will happen with payment for deliveries - these flows cannot be turned so easily towards “friendly countries”.
Therefore, it is better to immediately put the question rather harshly, why pretend to be a rag.
Which, in general, the Russian leadership did.
And, as it were, without much doubt.
And Europe, in general, understood.
Just as an example: in fact, simultaneously with the shutdown of the Finnish operator Gasum and, which is especially significant, after the relevant clarifications from the European Commission, national operators from Germany and Italy announced payments under a new, ruble scheme.
Thus, in particular, Berlin has already notified German gas importers of the possibility of opening ruble accounts to pay for energy resources with Gazprombank, provided that payments to Gazprombank are made in euros.
Which, of course, also turns out to be very funny: the shipments are made not by Gazprombank, but by Gazprom itself.
And he does this, according to the decree of Vladimir Putin, only after the payment in rubles is credited to his accounts.
Well, and God bless them, let them be cunning, we have solved our priority tasks.
Deliveries, in terms of payments, have become fundamentally safer.
Buyers that are strategically important for the Russian side, such as Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Hungary and even Slovakia, switched to ruble settlements (Turkey, Belarus, China, etc. are not unfriendly countries, so the new scheme does not apply to them ).
Most of the "refuseniks", including Poland, still buy the same Russian gas, only "purified" through - as in the case of Poland - German intermediaries.
The falling volumes are quite compensated by a solid increase in prices.
As for Finland itself, which for some reason wanted in this simple equation, as they say, to be ahead of the European steam locomotive, then everything is developing there, we would not say that it is very pragmatic.
Now let's try to explain.
Last year's numbers are particularly revealing here.
In total, in 2021 (indicative of the pre-war, but still partly pandemic) year, Gazprom supplied Gasum with 1.49 billion cubic meters of pipeline gas, which amounted to approximately two-thirds of the total gas consumption in Finland.
What is especially important, these deliveries were carried out far from the prices of the London ICE exchange.
And that is why, despite all the gas crises in Europe, our friendly (for the time being) Finland and its energy sector felt relatively good.
For Gazprom, these volumes, to be honest, are not very important.
Just for comparison: in the same period we supplied 48.18 billion cubic meters to Germany, 26.76 billion to Turkey, 18.45 billion to Italy, and even to rebellious Poland almost 11 billion cubic meters of blue fuel.
That is, from the point of view of the current state of Gazprom, 1.49 billion cubic meters of short deliveries to Finland are, excuse me, nothing at all.
In addition, it is not very difficult to attach them: the domestic market of Karelia, which is in dire need of gasification, will swallow these volumes without hesitation, and even ask for supplements.
The fact that this is possible - remember the recent statements on Nord Stream 2: its second line is already being redirected to domestic supplies.
So it's unpleasant, of course, like any lost profit.
But, as they say, we will survive.
But on the Finnish side of the border, there is already a slightly different story.
These falling volumes, of course, are not so significant in absolute terms, and theoretically they can be replaced: Finland is, in general, not a poor country.
But just remember that this is two-thirds (!) Of the total consumption.
And that, sorry, is the problem.
Which will have to be decided.
And here there is one more funny detail: not in the way that Gasum thinks to do it, judging by the statements already made.
Going to replace the falling Russian volumes through the Estonian gas pipeline Balticconnector.
And the point here is not even that its capacity, obviously, may not be enough to meet demand.
The problem here is that Estonia itself is also ... ahem ... not a very energy-abundant country.
And, by the way, together with Poland and other "Baltic tigers" refused to pay Russian rubles for gas.
Well, the Finnish economy can simply be congratulated here: yes, gas in the energy balance of Finland is approximately 5%.
But gas is used there mainly in factories, and not for heating, as in many other European countries, and even if it can be replaced with the same LNG, it will come to these factories at exchange, London prices.
After that, most of these enterprises will have to go through (or not go through at all) some pretty interesting times.
In a word, when Vladimir Putin at the CSTO, explaining Russia's position on Sweden and Finland, said that Russia actually had no problems with these countries, he was not at all cunning.
Even the problems in their own economy through the collapse of our relationship, these guys create for themselves exclusively by themselves.
In front of the surprised European Commission, by the way, which allowed, albeit with reservations, to buy gas, as the Russians demand, for rubles.
In a word, the story here turns out to be simply amazingly revealing.
As the wonderful Soviet playwright Yevgeny Schwartz once said, albeit on a slightly different occasion, in the play “Dragon”, which formed the basis of the famous film by Mark Zakharov, to justify “this is how we were taught”: “Everyone was taught.
But why were you the first student?”
And there is, they say, such a Finnish folk saying: "The first fool running gets the first stick."
And if it is not necessary to remember the Soviet classic Schwartz in Finland, then the Finnish leadership is somehow ashamed not to know its own folklore.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.