The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, said that “Gazprom’s actions are not surprising, and the use of gas as a weapon will not change the structure of the European Union.”

“We will accelerate our path to energy independence and our duty to protect our citizens and uphold the freedom of Ukraine,” he said in a statement.

In this context, the German Ministry of Economics indicated that “we have no comments on the decision of the Russian company Gazprom, but we saw that Russia cannot be relied upon”, explaining that “our gas preparations are much better than they were several months ago, our gas reserves exceeded 80 percent.” She noted: “We are making good progress on alternative routes for Russian gas supplies.”

And the giant Gazprom today announced that “gas pumping to Europe via Nord Stream 1 has been completely and indefinitely stopped due to a turbine breakdown,” explaining that “Siemens has been informed of the need to fix it.”