“How America took out the Nord Stream pipeline”

Gazprom, Russian gas monopoly, has on Kremlin’s orders first threatened to, and then suspended gas supplies to Europe in an attempt to blackmail it to stop supporting Ukraine under a threat of, as they put it, “freezing Europe”. In the process unilaterally breaking existing delivery contracts. There were no Western sanctions targeting Russian gas - it was entirely a political operation initiated by Russian government, “weaponizing energy supplies” as it often referred to, in the course of hybrid war.

Kremlin has miscalculated - Europe was able to largely avoid the intended crisis, while simultaneously Gazprom lost its largest market. The pivot from Russian supplies did come at a significant cost though.

Now that the Western sanctions are strangling Russian economy - if Gazprom wanted to come back to European market - they would be first greeted by billions of dollars of contract charges in arbitration courts.

It has long became obvious that Gazprom will likely attempt to use claims of force majeure to try to avoid financial penalties. And as it became customary for Russia - start preparing fertile ground in the courts of public opinion by planting various stories misdirecting the blame and muddying the waters.

Why don't we just properly view the gas reductions for what they are - a form of sanctioning?

Kremlin sanctioned themselves? Or are you presenting the suspension of gas supplies to Europe by Russia as a sort of “retaliatory sanctions”? That’s fine of course, it’s like North Korea cutting off themselves from the world and starving as a way to punish the world for interfering in its internal matters as they relate to nuclear weapons.

Deliberately misunderstanding what I said won't change my opinion or anybody else's.