Russia again halted gas supplies via a major pipeline to Europe on Wednesday, in a move that intensifies the economic battle between Moscow and Brussels, raising the prospect of recession and energy rationing in some of the region's richest countries.

The interruption of flows through “Nord Stream 1” comes for maintenance, which means that gas will not flow into Germany between 01:00 GMT today, Wednesday, August 31, until 01:00 GMT on the third of next September, according to the energy company. Russian giant "Gazprom".

Data from the pipeline operator's website showed flows dropped to zero between 02:00 and 03:00 GMT on Wednesday.

The pipeline operator, Nord Stream AG, announced the halting of deliveries of Russian gas to Germany from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline across the Baltic Sea early Wednesday morning, as planned.

Nord Stream AG's website said, "No significant amounts of gas flowed through the pipeline between 3 and 4 a.m. (one and two a.m. GMT)."


European concerns

European governments fear that Moscow will extend the outage in response to Western sanctions imposed on it over the Ukraine war, and have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using energy supplies as a "weapon of war." Moscow denies this.

Increased restrictions on European gas supplies will exacerbate an energy crisis that has already led to a rise in wholesale gas prices by more than 400% since August last year, and this has caused a painful crisis that raised the cost of living for consumers and increased costs for companies and forced governments to spend Billions to ease the burden.

In contrast to a 10-day maintenance of the pipeline last month, the new maintenance was announced just less than two weeks ago.


Moscow has already reduced supplies via Nord Stream 1 to 40% of its capacity in June and to 20% last July, blaming maintenance problems and sanctions that it says prevent the return of equipment and installation.

Gazprom said the new shutdown is necessary to carry out maintenance on the pipeline's only remaining compressor.

Russia has completely cut off supplies to Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland, and reduced flows through other pipelines, since launching what Moscow calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine.


Gas stocks in Europe

According to officials, the European Union has achieved the target quantities of natural gas reserves for the upcoming winter season ahead of schedule, despite Russia reducing the quantities of gas it pumps to Europe over the past months.

And the Bloomberg news agency reported that Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, celebrated yesterday, Tuesday, reaching 80% of the storage capacity of natural gas reservoirs, a goal that was scheduled to be reached by the first of next November.

The European Union tightened the rules governing the storage of natural gas earlier this year, after the decline in stock levels last winter, which led to a strong energy crisis, especially in Germany, where the Russian natural gas company "Gazprom" controlled major deposits.

Natural gas reserves in Europe cover between 25% and 30% of consumption in the winter season, which helps to counteract any supply disruption during the peak consumption season in Europe.

On Tuesday, Germany announced that natural gas storage depots were filling up faster than expected, as the filling rate reached 82% of the storage capacity of the warehouses, while it was aiming to achieve this percentage in October, according to statements by German Economy Minister Robert Habeck.