Will it be total war?
"Putin has lost, but now we must find ways to avoid the use of nuclear weapons," warns former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. Federico Guiglia's notebook
Since yesterday, not even that last 10 percent of gas arrives – from 40 in normal times – that Italy still received from Russia. For Gazprom's invoked bureaucratic problems, which in reality must be related to the choices of the European Union against Putin's war (a plan already put in place to renounce the disbursements from Moscow and the possible, imminent introduction of a at the price of gas), supplies through Tarvisio are "zero".
From the point of view of supply, the damage is non-existent, because the flows from Algeria have already replaced the historical Russian dependence. But the political signal is clear: Putin is responding with his other weapon – energy – to the strategy and sanctions of the West and Italy.
A very insidious scenario, and Giorgia Meloni, the candidate for Palazzo Chigi, breaks the silence that had imposed itself after the electoral victory to underline that the expensive bill has become "an urgent dossier". And that the main issue is no longer “how to compensate for gas speculation, but how to stop it”. He thus confirms that the future government will also push the EU to overcome the selfishness of Germany and the interests of Holland and other countries to adopt the common roof that Mario Draghi has been demanding for months.
It is a commitment to continuity in foreign and energy policy that comes at the most serious moment of the "repugnant war", as Pope Francis has branded it with definitive words. Far from stopping to understand if, how and when it is possible to open at least a truce negotiation, Putin has instead annexed 4 Ukrainian regions with arms and organized punctual referendum-farce to be able to threaten the world: who should attack the areas now proclaimed "Russian forever" must know that they will be defended "by any means possible".
A heavy warning that also evokes the use of atomic retaliation, never as now considered with concern by governments and experts. "Putin has lost, but now we must find ways to avoid the use of nuclear weapons," warns former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger.
One more reason, therefore, for Europe to reaffirm unity of purpose against the specter of total war foreshadowed by Putin and his regime's accomplices. After the duty of the EU of 27 to find the same unity on energy policy, a test bed against old or new blackmail.
(Published in Bresciaoggi )
www.federicoguiglia.com
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/putin-stop-gas-russo-italia/ on Tue, 04 Oct 2022 05:13:20 +0000.