MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Overseas Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West on Wednesday of upsetting crises on the worldwide oil and fuel market by dashing to change to inexperienced power and imposing strain on different international locations to do the identical.
“In reality, the explanations for the unfavourable phenomena within the power sector had been the irresponsible actions of the collective West, when it determined to power … the inexperienced transition for itself and impose the identical inexperienced transition on different international locations that had been merely not economically prepared for it,” Lavrov mentioned in televised feedback.
He mentioned Western boycotts of Russian power in response to the warfare in Ukraine had “dealt a critical blow to world power safety. These steps led to the rupture of historic worth chains, expensive redistribution of worldwide power flows and rising transaction and logistics prices.”
Lavrov mentioned the blowing-up of Russia’s Nord Stream fuel pipelines to Europe final 12 months had disadvantaged the continent of low-cost fuel and made it extra reliant on costly imports from the US.
His feedback had been according to Moscow’s long-running narrative that sanctions towards Russia have been an personal aim, and that Western international locations have made a grave mistake in turning away from Russian power.
The sanctions have severely hit Russian fuel large Gazprom, which has misplaced most of its European markets, and compelled Russia to sharply enhance gross sales of oil at discounted costs to international locations similar to China and India.
(Reporting by Reuters; Enhancing by Gareth Jones)