Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is said to have “icily” rejected US and EU criticism of Russia’s blatant use of gas resources as a political weapon in a dispute with Ukraine earlier in the year.
More importantly he also publicly rebuffed European attempts to gain access to his country’s vast gas pipeline network. Putin’s tough stance at a one day EU-Russian summit on the Black Sea, has increased tension between Russia and the EU, and it sets the stage for a “fractious summit” of G8 leaders in St Petersburg in July, where energy security is top of the agenda.Russia supplies one quarter of the EU’s gas needs, a figure expected to rise to more than 60 per cent by 2030. Putin is also said to be particularly “incensed by criticism from US Vice-President Dick Cheney this month. Mr Cheney accused Moscow of rolling back democratic reforms and of using its energy resources to blackmail other countries but Mr Putin said his allegations smacked of hypocrisy”, according to The Independent.
The US having a hypocritical foreign policy when it comes to energy. Never heard such rubbish.