Ukraine crisis: Moscow threatens to cut gas supplies to Europe in retaliation for sanctions

Furthermore, Putin is determined to build a Russian bloc.Obama, the kumbaya-singing community organizer, is incapable of handling this crisis.

OLIVER POOLE

The prospect of a European energy crisis loomed last night as Moscow threatened to impose retaliatory sanctions, and the new Prime Minister of Ukraine said his country could suffer shortages if help was not received from the West.

Russia supplies 30 per cent of Europe's gas and a number of the Baltic states are almost entirely reliant on Russia.

Yesterday, the Russian foreign ministry labelled this week's EU sanctions, in which a further 12 people close to President Vladimir Putin have had their assets frozen and a travel ban imposed, as "divorced from reality".

With both Brussels and Washington now threatening further "targeted measures" this week, Moscow made it clear that it was considering tit-for-tat sanctions. "Russia reserves the right to give an adequate response to the undertaken action," a spokesman said.

Ukraine's Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, highlighted precarious energy supplies during a visit to Berlin, saying gas from the EU might

Final Nail In The Coffin Of The Dollar: Putin To Announce ‘Holy Grail’ Gas Deal With China (Video)

via Zero Hedge

If it was the intent of the West to bring Russia and China together – one a natural resource (if “somewhat” corrupt) superpower and the other a fixed capital / labor output (if “somewhat” capital misallocating and credit bubbleicious) powerhouse – in the process marginalizing the dollar and encouraging Ruble and Renminbi bilateral trade, then things are surely “going according to plan.”

For now there have been no major developments as a result of the shift in the geopolitical axis that has seen global US influence, away from the Group of 7 (most insolvent nations) of course, decline precipitously in the aftermath of the bungled Syrian intervention attempt and the bloodless Russian annexation of Crimea, but that will soon change. Because while the west is focused on day to day developments in Ukraine, and how to halt Russian expansion through appeasement (hardly a winning tactic as events in the 1930s demonstrated), Russia is once again thinking 3 steps ahead… and quite a few steps east.