Russia’s potential for weaponization of gas supplies after the Re-invasion of Ukraine

Abstract

The paper discusses Russia’s potential for weaponization of gas supplies after its re-invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Moscow attempted to weaponize its gas supplies to the EU as a tool of coercion to force the EU into decisions favorable to Russia. However, Moscow lost its potent political leverage over one of the biggest gas markets in the world, which now has to be replaced by markets with a nearly non-existent political potential for gas weaponization. Arguably only China could replace the EU in this regard but here Russia has no political leverage or potential to create new patterns of interdependence in the gas relations. As a result, Russia became dependent on the new alternative gas market of a monopsonist buyer with no potential for using gas supply weaponization as a foreign policy tool.