Putin offers additional gas supply to Europe

MOSCOW - Russia is ready to deliver additional volumes of natural gas to the European Union in the autumn-winter period, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

One of the two branches of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has survived the recent leak incident and Russia is willing to send gas through it to Europe, Putin said at the plenary session of the "Russian Energy Week" international forum in Moscow.

"Its capacity is 27.5 billion cubic meters per year, which is about 8 percent of all gas imports of Europe. Russia is ready to start such deliveries. The ball is on the side of the European Union," he said.

Russia could also transfer the lost volumes through the Nord Stream pipelines to the Black Sea region and create key supply routes to Europe via Türkiye, "if, of course, our partners are interested in this," he added.

At the forum, Putin expressed concerns about unstable energy prices and an imbalance in supply and demand, and he criticized certain countries "who are guided solely by their own geopolitical ambitions, resort to outright discrimination in the market."

He called the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines "an act of international terrorism." Putin said that those behind the sabotage sought to break ties completely between Russia and the European Union, weaken Europe's industrial potential and seize the market.