Heading towards World War III?

Austria’s oil and gas conglomerate OMV said on Friday that it had opened an account with Gazprombank to pay for Russian gas imports, insisting that the scheme does not violate the current EU embargo against Moscow. Austria imports some 80% of its gas from Russia.

“We have implemented a payment process that does not violate sanctions and ensures timely payments for gas supplies,” an OMV spokesman told Reuters on Friday evening. “We consider our payment obligations fulfilled with the transfer of the amount in euros.”

Facing a ban on trading in euros and dollars, Moscow introduced a new mechanism for gas payments from “unfriendly” countries at the end of March. Countries that imposed sanctions against Russia have to set up accounts with Gazprombank, where the payments in the currency of their choice will be converted to rubles for the final payment. As of May 12, a total of 20 European companies have opened such accounts.

Some, such as Finland, have refused – and will be cut off by Saturday as a result, Moscow has confirmed.

Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria, the UK, Slovenia, and the Baltic states are among the countries that have publicly refused the new payment mechanism. Russia will not supply free natural gas to countries that refuse to honor the new payment mechanism, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

“Obviously, no one will supply anything to anyone for free,” Peskov told reporters.

While the US has urged EU countries to switch from Russian imports to the far more scarce – and expensive – American liquefied natural gas (LNG), for many countries this is simply not an option.

“Austria is 80% dependent on Russian gas. As painful as it is, a gas embargo is currently not possible for us, just as it is for some other countries. The essence of sanctions is to let us last longer than [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, and we cannot do that without gas,” energy minister Leonore Gewessler said in an interview last month.

Anti-Russian embargoes have already caused a sharp spike in the cost of living across the EU, with Austria recording the highest inflation in 40 years as of April 2022.

www.rt.com/business/555846-austria-gas-account-rubles

Russia has halted natural gas deliveries to Finland after state energy wholesaler Gasum failed to make a required payment in rubles, the Finnish gas system operator Gasgrid Finland said on Saturday.

“Gas imports through Imatra entry point have been stopped,” the statement read.

Russia’s Gazprom Export has confirmed a complete halt in gas deliveries to Finland.

“Gazprom has completely stopped gas supplies to Gasum (Finland) due to non-payment in rubles. As of the end of the business day on May 20, Gazprom Export has not received payment for gas supplies in April from Gasum (Finland)” in accordance with the new ruble-based payment mechanism, the company said in a statement.

Gasum also confirmed on Saturday that the deliveries had stopped.

Earlier this week, Gasum announced that it would not comply with Russia’s new ruble-based gas payment scheme.

Finland imports the vast majority of its natural gas from Russia, but the fuel only accounts for about 5% of the country’s energy use.

Nearly 30% of primary energy in Finland comes from wood-based fuels, while 22.5% is from oil, and 19% from nuclear energy, according to media reports, citing official figures.

In 2020, Russia supplied around 1.61 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Finland, and last year the figure stood at 1.8 billion cubic meters. Also, Finland has two liquefied natural gas terminals in Pori and Tornio, with total capacity of 0.65 billion cubic meters per year.

In order to completely replace Russian gas supplies, Finland will have to fully use its existing energy infrastructure, analysts say, as the Nordic nation does not have its own underground gas storage capacity.

State company Gasum says it's prepared for a Russian supply shutdown. Finland hopes to receive gas from Estonia via the Balticconnector gas pipeline during the summer, although Tallinn also rejected Russia’s new payment mechanism last month, and capacity limitations on the pipeline may complicate the task.

Media reports also say that both Estonia and Finland intend to rent a floating terminal to receive liquefied natural gas (LNG) by next autumn.

www.rt.com/business/555819-russia-halts-gas-supplies-finland

The FT's US national editor, Edward Luce, talks to former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, about Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the spectre of nuclear war.

The Syrian permanent mission to the UN stated on Friday that the US must withdraw its troops from the country at once and pay reparations for the deaths of dozens of civilians in a 2019 airstrike in the town of Baghuz.

Damascus categorically rejected a Pentagon report claiming it was not at fault for the attack, declaring its conclusions represent “an admission of negligence that calls for accountability.”

The Pentagon had released a report on Tuesday claiming the March 18, 2019 airstrike targeting an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) encampment in Syria's Baghuz, initially believed to have killed some 70 people, did not violate the rules of engagement or laws of war.

Washington's assessment ultimately claimed that of the 56 people it determined to have died in the 500-pound bomb blast, just four were civilians. The report also claimed that while “civilians were within the blast radius” resulting in civilian casualties, the decision to drop the massive bomb had “demonstrated awareness for non-combatants.” However, in determining who was considered a terrorist, it used an Obama-era standard classifying all killed military-age males as combatants by default.

The Syrian mission to the UN dismissed the Pentagon's conclusions as a “clear attempt to absolve the US occupation forces in Syria of their direct responsibility for civilian casualties under the pretext of fighting the terrorist organization ‘ISIS’” and rejected any claims that “efforts have been made to distinguish between civilians and members of ‘ISIS’” as “empty justifications” for the murder of civilians.

“These biased investigations cannot deny the fact that a crime against humanity has occurred in Baghuz,” the mission told Newsweek on Friday. “Any justifications provided by the US administration for not violating the law of war or the rules of engagement are to circumvent the fact that the US forces deployed in Syria are illegal and they launch military strikes, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, without the approval or coordination of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

Despite the report supposedly clearing the US military of any wrongdoing, the full text remains classified, with just a two-page summary released to the public. The site of the blast itself was quickly bulldozed, and the initial internal reports were “delayed, sanitized, and classified,” according to the New York Times.

The report's conclusions stood in stark contrast to remarks from US personnel on the ground at the time, with one military analyst reportedly stating that “we just dropped [the 500-pound bomb] on 50 women and children” and others questioning whether they had just witnessed a war crime.

www.rt.com/news/555891-syria-denounces-pentagon-civilian-casualties

Washington has been deliberately lying about Ukraine’s prospects to ever join NATO, knowing that the former Soviet republic isn’t a legitimate contender to qualify for membership in the Western military bloc, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has acknowledged.

www.rt.com/news/555895-us-ukraine-nato-prospects

Russia has stopped supplying power to Lithuania, the country’s electricity transmission system operator Litgrid announced on Sunday.

Inter RAO, which was the only importer of electricity from Russia to Lithuania, confirmed the suspension of deliveries. Earlier this month, Inter RAO’s Nordic branch also stopped supplying electricity to Finland.

Lithuania’s Energy Ministry initially announced that it would stop buying Russian electricity on Friday.

“According to the decision of the electricity exchange operator Nord Pool, trading in electricity generated in Russia, which was carried out by Inter RAO (through its subsidiary Inter RAO Lietuva), is terminated” starting from May 22, the ministry said in a statement.

www.rt.com/business/555875-russia-halts-electricity-supply-lithuania