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>> Question is will Russia then attempt to hurt Europe by blocking gas deliveries like it is doing now with Nord Stream 1.

Sorry for the naive question, but are the Nord Stream gas deliveries:

1. blocked because sanctions dont allow for commerce/transactions,

or

2. blocked to hurt the customer (Europe) by not transacting even when transacting is possible?

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There are no sanctions against Russian gas and the contractual agreed money is paid as specified in the contracts. The involved Russian banks have been excluded from the sanctions to facilitate that. On the other side, Russia has started to starve Europe of Gas about a year ago, also showing how long planned this war is. The boiling of a frog metaphor applies here and has been executed perfectly by Russia. As shown by how many people don't realize what had happened.

Currently NS1 is blocked under the excuse of repairs. Now that could be true, but it could also be a showcase from Russia of what it can inflict. So yeah, option 2 it is.

The repairs are standard, planned in advance and happen every year. No gas is actually blocked. The articles stressing about the pipeline are all based on pure speculation about whether it won't come back, but there's no actual evidence that will happen. It's just what-if scenarios.

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