How Europe is funding Putin’s war by Cornelius Hirsch, Giovanna Coi and James Randerson published by Politico (2/2022).
“European countries are reluctant to stop buying oil and gas from Russia for fear of economic consequences at home.
Who’s paying for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s jet fighters and tanks? The same EU countries that say they want him to stop his assault on Ukraine, a country that is supposedly their ally.
It’s a crazy paradox that Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki raised at an EU leaders’ summit on sanctions against Moscow that ran into Friday morning. The bloc was unable to agree measures against the SWIFT international payments system because so many countries use it for their all-important gas payments to Moscow.
“We are buying as European Union lots of Russian gas, lots of Russian oil. And President Putin is taking the money from us, from the Europeans. And he is turning this into aggression, invasion,” he said…”
