This removes a rallying call for increasingly extreme Russia-friendly parties in Europe.
These parties (Italy and Hungary to name just two) are angling for friendlier relations with Russia, and name gas as one of the reasons.
And over winter Russia will say "We want to help Europe. And we want to help their people. And we even have a pipelines full of gas waiting. But their political parties don't want us to help."
And then Europe is full of far-left and far-right Russia-friendly political parties, Ukraine is part of Russia, Russia counts its oil money and continues its military expansion.
Re:Gas Leak in the Baltic Sea
by formerly_proven on Tuesday September 27, 2022 @11:15AM
(#32996403)
EU/Germany is already at that point because Russia openly stopped honoring the existing contracts and ceased deliveries months ago. So even this constructed incentive does not exist.
I don't think that's what happened, but I do see an incentive. If you can turn "we're going to increase the conflict by refusing trade" into "we'd buy, but you can't deliver", that's a potentially politically useful change. Also internally "we're taking a stance and sacrificing your comfort during the winter" is worse optics than "we need to deal with the situation where even if we wanted to buy from Russia, we can't; sorry for the inconvenience".