Russia cuts Finland’s access to natural gas

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Russia will cut off natural gas to Finland after the Nordic country, which applied for NATO membership this week, refused President Vladimir Putin’s demand to pay in rubles, the Finnish state-owned energy company said Friday, the latest escalation over European energy amid the war in Ukraine.

Finland is the latest country to lose the energy supply, which is used to generate electricity and power industry, after rejecting Russia’s decree. Poland and Bulgaria were cut off late last month but, along with Finland, were relatively minor customers who had prepared to move away from Russian natural gas.

Putin has declared that “unfriendly foreign buyers” open two accounts in stateowned Gazprombank, one to pay in euros and dollars as specified in contracts and another in rubles. Italian energy company Eni said this week that it was “starting procedures” to open a euro and a ruble account.

The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, has said the system does not violate EU sanctions if countries make a payment in the currency listed in their contracts and then formally signal that the payment process is concluded. But it says opening a second account in rubles would breach sanctions.

Analysts say the EU stance is ambiguous enough to allow the Kremlin to keep trying to undermine unity among the 27 member countries — but losing major European customers like Italy and Germany would cost Russia heavily. It comes as Europe tries to reduce its dependency on Russian oil and gas to avoid pouring hundreds of millions into Putin’s war chest each day but build enough reserves before winter.