EU’s energy policy is economic suicide – Putin

Attempts to ditch Russian fossil fuels have triggered energy inflation in the West, president says

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that energy inflation in Western countries should be blamed on their own mistakes, and not on Russia. The EU is committing economic suicide by trying to wean itself off from Russian energy resources, Putin said.

“Such an economic auto-da-fé, suicide is, of course, an internal affair of European countries. We must act pragmatically, proceed primarily from our own economic interests,” he said during a video conference on the oil sector.

According to Putin, Europe recognizes that it cannot yet completely abandon Russian energy resources. Nevertheless, they have set such a task, “without paying any attention to the damage that they have already caused to their own economy.”

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The sanctions and declarations about the desire to give up on Russian energy have contributed to the growth of oil prices across the world,” he stressed.

“Today we see that for absolutely political reasons, because of their own ambitions and under pressure from their American overlord, European countries are imposing more and more new sanctions on the oil and gas markets. All this leads to inflation, and instead of admitting their mistakes, they are looking to assign guilt somewhere else,” Putin said.

“They are trying to blame this energy inflation on us, they blame everything on Russia, trying to cover up, as I said, their own systemic mistakes in this area,” the Russian president added.

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