Yes, but this way Putin can plausibly deny that it was a policy decision. Same with novichok poisonings: everyone knows Putin's pulling the strings, nobody can prove he did.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/putin-blames-germany...

Putin wants the pipelines open, because europe knows that the minute they sit down and reach a deal with russia, the valves get open, europe gets the gas.

Now europe is fucked, and even if local people protest due to cold, sitting down with putin won't bring back enough gas, so there is less incentive to actually make a deal.

But I'm sure USA will profit by selling overpriced gas to europe.

I encourage you to drop the definite article "the" when referring to Ukraine.

https://theconversation.com/its-ukraine-not-the-ukraine-here...

> Like it or not, and intentionally or not, the language a person uses reflects their political positions, including their position on Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.

As a citizen of the United States, this whole issue seems ridiculous. It's remarkable though how a media and PR campaign, combined with social pressure, can change our lexicon practically overnight.

> There are exceptions, but these are the general principles that bind speakers of Russian and English.

These exceptions include collections of states (eg. the UAE, the US) and country names derived from regions (the Netherlands, the Congo, the Ukraine).

Let's take these one by one:

>the Netherlands This is plural: the Low Countries. You are referring to a group, same as the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

>the Congo Which one? ... Exactly.

>the Ukraine Already discussed, referring to it as a region denies its sovereignty.

> Which one? ... Exactly

What can I say, English is weird. The Gambia does the same, in both cases referring to the region around a particular river.

So allowing the reserves to fill to 90% does not lose Putin the game, it gives him increased time to keep the citizens in suspense, thus creating doubt and confusion.

And it gives him money. War is expensive.

I've been hoping from the start that someone would sabotage the pipelines to remove the temptation. Guess I got my wish.

you must be an american, since they're the only ones who profit from all this.

So basically Europe will still continue to receive a huge fraction of Russian gas, but it would all run essentially through a war zone.