As you say, Russia played overt stop-blackmail-start-repeat games with Nordstream in 2022, but they started reducing gas deliveries to the EU already in 2021. M

As you say, Russia played overt stop-blackmail-start-repeat games with Nordstream in 2022, but they started reducing gas deliveries to the EU already in 2021. Myopic market "analysts" interpreted it as a trade tactic [1], but to those who were paying attention to the troop buildup around Ukraine and the increasingly frantic "diplomacy" (it's not often you see a CIA director travel to Moscow [2]), it was another ominous sign. In hindsight, it's obvious they wanted to "soften up" Europe by making it go into winter 2021-2022 with lower gas storage levels than normal. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/19/energy-crisis-russia-opts-against-increasing-gas-supplies-to-europe.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/19/energy-crisis-russia-opts-ag... [2] https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/bill-burns-moscow-ukraine/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/05/politics/bill-burns-mosco...