On Friday, Russia announced that it will suspend thermal coal exports to Ukraine. The decision will take effect on Monday, threatening a Ukrainian energy crisis amid the cold winter months. It’s the latest salvo in a Russian energy war that has been underway for weeks now.
Thermal coal is burned for the generation of heat and in some industrial processes. While not the only type of coal, it is crucial to Ukraine’s energy supply and the heating of homes and businesses. Moscow claims the cutoff is necessary because its own domestic stocks are running low. But that’s a lie. Apparently missing the “we’re short on energy at home” memo, Russia’s Gazprom energy giant on Friday announced that it had reached its domestic energy reserve targets.
Regardless, Ukraine now faces a critical challenge: lacking the energy supplies necessary to stop its people from freezing. At the same time, combined arms Russian military forces lurk within and around Ukraine. Unconfirmed video suggests Russian armored formations are now being brought forward toward Ukraine’s borders.
President “I’ll get tough on Putin” Biden is not on the case.
Biden won’t send warships near to occupied Crimea. He tolerates Putin authorized ransomware attacks. Most relevant to Ukraine, Biden overtly appeases Russian energy blackmail. The State Department’s top energy official, Amos Hochstein, led the appeasement charge on Friday.
Addressing a Washington think tank, Hochstein offered Russia some absolution. Explaining that the mixed messaging from Russia over energy exports was confusing (it really isn’t — it’s just Russia muddying the waters to earn equivocation of the very kind Hochstein offered), the energy guru announced that “Russia did not create the natural gas crisis in Europe.”
This, predictably, won headlines in Russian state media. Hochstein did admit “that Russia has not done what it could to mitigate its consequences, to slow down price increases and to actually eliminate a potential crisis from happening.” But the Biden administration’s parsing of words is deeply unhelpful. It avoids the basic fact that even if the global energy shortage has its roots in the pandemic and other factors, Russia is greatly exacerbating the issue in support of its strategic objectives. Hochstein admitted as much on Monday, when he observed that Russia “can increase upstream production. They should do it… if Russia has the gas to supply through Nord Stream 2, as they suggest, that means that they have the gas to supply it through the Ukrainian GTS or the pipelines as well.”
The Germans, however, are happy to play Putin’s game. And absent American leadership against Germany’s disinterest for European energy security, Putin is the victor. Thanks to Putin’s gambit, Ukraine, Poland, and central-eastern Europe are being left out in the cold. Amid NATO’s sustaining confidence deficit, Putin must feel he has firm control of the strategic initiative.
Biden’s promise to restore U.S. leadership?
It’s dancing on thick Russian ice.
