Soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron sought to help resolve the conflict diplomatically. During the war’s first summer, Macron said it was important that Moscow was not humiliated and that a European security order including Russia should be established.

But since last year, Macron has been drastically shifting towards what has been described as a hawkish foreign policy.

At a conference in Paris last month, the French president said a deployment of Western troops to fight Russia on the ground in Ukraine should not be ruled out, a suggestion that angered Russian President Vladimir Putin and was dismissed by Ukraine’s main backers.

While speaking in Prague on March 5, Macron declared that Europeans can’t be “cowards” when countering Moscow.

What explains Macron’s shifting posture?

Macron’s moves come as Ukraine faces serious problems on the battlefield and as United States military support is delayed.

While Ukraine’s main aim is to hold firm in the war, Kyiv’s side lacks manpower while fighting a country with a population three times its own.

Its ammunition shortages are another significant challenge and against the backdrop of an anti-climactic counteroffensive last year, Ukraine is struggling to size up its army.

There are concerns that these conditions will embolden Moscow to act more confidently, not only in Ukraine, but also possibly in Moldova, the South Caucasus, and the Sahel.

Meanwhile, Paris is increasingly concerned about Russia’s hybrid warfare, which has reportedly intensified against France and other European Union members.

“France has been a particular target of hybrid attacks – [for example] cyber, disinformation – recently. This probably helped Macron come to terms with the reality of a more aggressive Russia,” said Mathieu Droin, a visiting fellow in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia programme at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and former official at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Meanwhile, Macron wants to advance his vision for Europe’s strategic autonomy from Washington and demonstrate Europe’s ability to support Kyiv without counting on the US – especially given the possibility of a second Donald Trump presidency.

“Undoubtedly, concerns about a second Trump presidency have woken Europeans up to the fact that they need to do more for their own defence,” said Artin DerSimonian, a research fellow in the Eurasia programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Such a realisation across the continent plays into Macron’s push for strategic autonomy.”

Growing European autonomy from Washington

Some of Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail last month has worried European policymakers.

At an event in South Carolina, he told his audience that he would encourage the Russians to “do whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member which fails to meet spending guidelines.

Macron has consistently warned France’s European partners that the US position on Ukraine has shifted, and that President Joe Biden’s administration “might only be a parenthesis, not a back to normal, in US politics”, said Droin.

“Of course, we welcome [the Americans] any time. We know how dependent we are on [Washington’s] security guarantee. But the fact is we can’t count on it indefinitely any more. This is what many Europeans are realising.

“This is definitely always in the back of [Macron’s] mind.”

(Al Jazeera)

While Macron’s talk of sending Western military forces to Ukraine was largely rejected by most of France’s NATO allies, the Baltic countries – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – rejoiced, as well as some others in closer geographic proximity to Russia.

Throughout the Russia-Ukraine war, and for many years before it, some Eastern and Central European countries believe that officials in NATO’s Western European members, including France, have been too eager to appease the Kremlin and failed to wake up to an existential threat.

“Macron’s hardened stance – at least rhetorically – on Ukraine may be a further attempt to ameliorate concerns in the east of the continent,” DerSimonian told Al Jazeera. “Whether or not Macron follows through with his rhetoric, he has certainly won favour in the eastern part of the continent, which may likely prove useful in future French strategic plans.”

It “certainly helped in closing ranks”, said Droin.

Excluding exceptions such as Hungary and Slovakia, countries in Eastern and Central Europe are the “most vocal and supportive of Ukraine” and have “warmly welcomed” Macron’s shift, Droin added.

Macron’s shift seemed to start at the end of May last year when he was speaking at a security conference hosted by GLOBSEC, a Bratislava-based think tank.

In a speech, he acknowledged that Paris had failed to sufficiently listen to the concerns of NATO members near Russia and Ukraine.

“He certainly realised that if he wants to build a stronger Europe and a more strategically autonomous Europe, as he usually says, he needs these countries and this is certainly a way to reconcile the two hemispheres of Europe,” said Droin.

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The Russia-Ukraine war appeared to top the agenda of the two-day summit which began on Tuesday, as NATO’s chief urged allies to continue supporting the war-wracked country amid funding hold-ups in Washington and Europe.

“I’m confident that the United States will continue to provide support because it is in the security interest of the United States to do so and it’s also in line with what we have agreed,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

“I urge allies, and allies are also committed to continue to deliver support,” he added.

Some $61bn in proposed US aid to Ukraine is being held up by the US Congress, while another $50bn package from the European Union is struggling to pass due to opposition from Hungary.

Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen, reporting from Brussels, said the funding delays show indications of “fatigue” from some NATO members 21 months into the war.

Ukraine’s top diplomat Dmytro Kuleba will try to overcome such fatigue and lobby for continued NATO backing when he joins the summit on Wednesday.

Kuleba will also work with NATO ministers to outline a plan for reforms aimed at helping Ukraine gain eventual membership in the security alliance.

Russia has said NATO expansionism is at the core of its grudge against bordering Ukraine, which it has repeatedly warned not to join the alliance.

More than 500,000 troops from Russia and Ukraine are estimated to have been killed or wounded since Moscow marched troops across its neighbor’s border in February 2022.

At least 10,000 civilians have also been killed in the conflict, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has said.

Broader regional security

Apart from the Russia-Ukraine war, NATO ministers also planned to discuss Russia’s “destabilizing actions” throughout the region, including allegations it has been enabling undocumented migrants to reach neighboring Finland.

Finland last week closed nearly all its border crossings with Russia after it said an influx of migrants arrived at its border with Russia.

Another topic on the agenda will be unrest between Serbia and Kosovo, where NATO has in recent months deployed more troops to reinforce its peacekeeping force following an attack on Kosovo police.

The ministers are also likely to address the seven-week war between Israel and Hamas, though it is not officially on the agenda.

Al Jazeera’s Vaessen said the ministers would discuss “not only the extension of the ceasefire [between Israel and Hamas] but a future for Gaza after the war is finished”.

Sweden’s membership bid

Hanging in the background of the summit is the membership status of Sweden, which has been awaiting ratification from Turkey and Hungary for 18 months.

Stoltenberg on Tuesday told Hungarian media he expected the two countries to approve Sweden’s membership bid without further delay, but gave no precise timeline.

The Turkish parliament started this month to debate Sweden’s bid to join after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan launched the process following a deal at a NATO summit in July.

Erdogan had delayed the ratification process over longstanding complaints Sweden is failing to act against Kurdish armed groups in its country that Turkey considers “terrorist” groups.

NATO’s other allies had hoped to formally welcome Sweden into the alliance at its Brussels summit, but Turkey’s ratification process is still at the committee level in parliament.

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From late February till now, the war in Ukraine has dominated the year’s news agenda like no other story. Even before Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, months of growing tensions hinted at the risk of a conflict in Europe. But, there was little sense of just how consequential and protracted the fighting would become.

The war has caused tens of thousands of casualties, forced millions from their homes and unleashed a multifaceted global economic crisis.

From battleground gains and losses to mass refugee flows and instrumental weapons supplies, in the maps and charts below Al Jazeera looks at how the war unfolded on the ground, the human costs and global responses.

Taking control on the ground

A satellite image shows a troop housing area and a vehicle park in Rechitsa,
 Belarus, February 4, 2022 
[Maxar Technologies/Handout via Retuers]

In late 2021, satellite images emerged showing the buildup of Russian troops on the snowy frontier with Ukraine, raising fears of an invasion. Diplomatic efforts were fruitless and on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised speech announced what he called a “special military operation” to “denazify” and “demilitarise” Ukraine.

People across Europe’s second-largest country woke up to the sound of sirens and explosions as Russian ground forces invaded from four main fronts in the north, northeast, east and south, while artillery and missiles targeted numerous locations.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pledged Ukraine will fight back as his government declared martial law and told Ukrainians to take up arms.

In the first month of the war, Russian forces pressed toward Ukraine’s largest cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and the second-largest city of Kharkiv. Moscow’s troops took control of the southern city of Kherson early on, but any Russian aspirations for a swift takeover were stymied by tough Ukrainian resistance.

Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, became a strategic base for Russia’s attempt to advance toward the capital. However, when Russia pulled its troops out of the Kyiv region at the end of March, stating that it would now focus on capturing the eastern Donbas region, evidence of alleged war crimes began to emerge. During a visit to Bucha in April, Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, described Ukraine as “a crime scene”.

By June, Russia controlled one-fifth of Ukraine, including the southern port city of Mariupol after months of heavy fighting. The front lines largely solidified during mid-year but by early September, Ukrainian forces managed to take advantage of a weaker Russian presence in northeastern Ukraine following the redeployment of Russian fighters to Donetsk and the southern axis, where a Ukrainian offensive in Kherson presented a threat.

The result was a swift counteroffensive that took the Kremlin by surprise and resulted in Ukrainian forces retaking large pockets in Kharkiv province and the town of Izyum – according to the British defense ministry, the retaken territory was at least twice the size of London.

“Within four days, Ukraine nullified four months of success of the Russian army that cost them a huge amount of victims,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a Russian expert at Germany’s Bremen University, told Al Jazeera.

Putin responded by announcing the annexation of four partially occupied provinces of eastern and southern Ukraine. The move came after voters in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia backed joining Russia, according to the results of referendums rejected by the government in Kyiv and its Western allies as meaningless and illegal.

Even though Putin declared that Russia had “four new regions”, calling its residents “our citizens forever”, his troops weeks later retreated from the city of Kherson, the first and only regional capital to be captured by Russian forces since the start of the war.

The decision, Russian officials said, was taken to save the lives of Russian soldiers in the face of a Ukrainian counteroffensive and difficulties to keep supply lines to the strategic city open.

Fighting has since largely focused on Donbas, where Russian forces have for months been battering the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk, at great cost, while Ukrainian troops push towards the key town of Kreminna, in Luhansk.

Human costs

Refugees fleeing 

The war has created one of the largest human displacement crises in the world.

About one-third of Ukraine’s more than 40 million population have been forced from their homes at some point since the invasion, with more than 7.8 million refugees heading towards Europe and some six million beings internally displaced within the country. The European Union has granted Ukrainians the right to stay and work for up to three years in the 27-member state area.

Since late February, the UN has recorded 16.5 million border crossings leaving Ukraine and 8.7 million enterings. Those who have fled Ukraine are mostly women and children, as men aged between 18 and 60 were instructed to remain and fight.

The map below shows where people have been fleeing.

The cost of living 

The continuing conflict has led to a global cost of living crisis, with the price of commodities including food items, fertilizer and fuel rising.

In particular, the war exposed Europe’s reliance on Russian energy, while disruptions of grain exports led to rising food prices in countries highly dependent on Ukraine and Russia for such supplies.

The effect has also been felt within Ukraine, which has suffered economic and social losses from damage to infrastructure, labor force dislocation and limited market access.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to drop by one-third in 2022.

In December 2021, two months before Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s inflation rate stood at 10 percent. By November 2022, it had risen to 26.5 percent. The price of food staples, such as bread, has risen 35 percent, while fuel and transport costs have increased about 40 percent.

Living in the dark  

Since October 10, waves of Russian attacks have destroyed or damaged power stations and other infrastructure needed to keep millions of Ukrainians safe from harsh weather conditions.

The attacks have destroyed more than 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy facilities, leaving entire cities without heat and water. Ukraine’s Western allies have said assaults on critical sites are designed to weaponize the winter in Europe.

Overall, Ukraine’s energy generation has declined since the invasion, with the sharpest drop in nuclear energy, which powers more than half of the country’s electricity. Demand fell in the first week of the war by about 30 percent, partly because a number of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors were disconnected from the grid when Russia invaded.

With winter conditions setting in, there has been more demand for electricity but rolling blackouts have meant that families used sleeping bags to stay warm, surgeries in hospitals were performed by phone flashlight, and people have tried to find spots in cities where they can charge their phones.

Global response

Sanctions against Russia

At least 46 countries or territories have imposed a total of more than 10,000 sanctions on Russia over the war, making it the most sanctioned country in the world, ahead of Iran, Syria and North Korea.

Countries and blocs including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and the EU have placed 8,613 sanctions on individuals, 1,658 against entities, 92 against vessels and 14 on aircraft.

By the end of 2022, Russia’s GDP is expected to drop by up to 4.5 percent in the worst-case scenario, according to projections by the World Bank.

Western aid to Ukraine 

The US, EU and European states provide most of the military, financial and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, according to data released by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think-tank.

The figures collected by the Kiel Institute quantify military, financial and humanitarian aid from governments to Ukraine, mainly the EU, and G7 countries. Military assistance includes weapons, equipment and financial aid for the Ukrainian military. Humanitarian relief covers medical, food and other items for civilians, while financial assistance comes in the form of grants, loans and guarantees.

In total, the US has committed about 47.8 billion euros ($50.3bn) of military, financial and humanitarian aid to Kyiv, with almost half coming in the form of military assistance. EU institutions such as the European Investment Bank, the EU Commission and Council, and the European Peace Facility have committed 35 billion euros ($36.8bn) in aid to Ukraine, mostly in the form of financial help. The UK is the third-highest contributor of aid to Ukraine, with 7.1 billion euros ($7.5bn) committed between January 24 and November 20.

Weapons defining the war

Western military supplies have fuelled Ukraine’s counteroffensives in the northeast and south, helping it regain large swaths of territory. Key among them have been the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems or HIMARS.

“HIMARS, along with GMLRs [Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems], achieve remarkable strike precision,” said Konstantinos Grivas, who teaches advanced weapons systems at the Hellenic Army Academy, adding that the “Russians have nothing similar”.

[Al Jazeera]

In mid-December, the US also agreed to send a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine. The surface-to-air guided missile system is one of the “most widely operated and reliable proven air missile defense systems”, according to Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The theatre ballistic missile defense capability would be advantageous for Ukraine in its defense against ballistic missiles, which have destroyed critical and energy infrastructure.

Conversely, Russia has lately been taking advantage of so-called “kamikaze” drones to inflict widespread damage, sending volleys of them toward Ukrainian cities and military positions. The Ukrainian government has accused Iran of providing Russia with low-cost Shahed drones, which carry 40kg warheads and are designed to fly low, thus evading radar. Iran has denied the allegations.

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Situated 48km (30 miles) off the coast, Snake Island, or Zmiinyi, was seized by Russia on the opening day of the full-scale invasion.

The occupation of Snake Island is of vital strategic importance as it enables the control of approach waters to Ukraine’s last three remaining commercial ports – including its main Black Sea port of Odesa, where a Russian blockade has prevented grain exports from one of the world’s main suppliers.

The island is also well known for an incident in which Ukrainian sailors stationed there reportedly told a Russian warship to “Go f*** yourself!” when it called on them to surrender on February 24, the day Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Yet after months under Russia’s control, Russian forces announced on Thursday that they had abandoned Snake Island – a significant victory for Ukraine.

Russia had long struggled to hold onto the island, as Ukraine launched repeated attacks to attempt to dislodge Russian forces.

Russia’s initial efforts to reinforce its presence on the island were partially successful. Air defense radar and anti-aircraft missiles helped fend off Ukrainian attacks as Russia tried to build the island up into a fortress capable of dominating the region’s air space and sea lanes.

Ukrainian air attacks on the island, while successful, proved costly as Russia shot down several TB2 armed drones.

So Ukraine turned to its complement of anti-ship missiles which have been used to great effect against Russian warships, most notably when Ukrainian cruise missiles sank the pride of the Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, on April 14.

This forced Russia to pull back most of its ships out of range but left Snake Island exposed as it needs resupply by sea. A ship carrying valuable stores, ammunition, weapons systems and personnel was hit and destroyed by Ukraine, forcing Russia to rethink its position on the island earlier in June.

Despite its heavy defences, regular Ukrainian attacks were making Russia’s position on the island untenable.

Russia’s defence ministry described the decision to withdraw as a “gesture of goodwill” that showed Moscow was not obstructing United Nations efforts to ship grain from Ukrainian ports.

But the abandonment of Snake island is a major reversal for Russia in the battle for control of the Black Sea, and shows that – despite Russian gains elsewhere – the war is far from over.

Ukraine claimed it had driven out the Russian forces after an enormous assault on Wednesday night.

“KABOOM!” Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, wrote on Twitter. “No Russian troops on the Snake Island any more. Our Armed Forces did a great job.”

There is now every possibility that Ukraine’s minuscule navy will turn the naval war against Russia. Anti-ship cruise missiles, both foreign and Ukrainian, plus armed drones, have made it increasingly risky for Russia’s remaining Black Sea Fleet to operate.

Routes to and from Odesa, still under Ukrainian control, will now be safer for foreign shipping to navigate and ensure larger exports of much-needed grain.

For the moment, Russia’s dream of dominating the Black Sea is over.

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Dozens of people, including women and children, have been evacuated from a steel plant in the pulverized city of Mariupol.

Two groups of civilians left the residential area around the Azovstal steelworks – the last Ukrainian stronghold in the bombed-out ruins of the southern Ukrainian city – on Saturday, Russian news agencies reported citing the defense ministry on Sunday.

The ministry said a total of 46 civilians left the area and were “provided with food and shelter”, RIA and TASS reported. Those brought out included 19 adults and six children. No further details were given.

Many efforts to arrange a ceasefire to allow residents to leave the city have broken down, with Moscow and Kyiv repeatedly blaming each other.

A leader with the Azov Battalion, the Ukrainian unit defending the plant, said 20 civilians were evacuated during a ceasefire, though it was not clear if he was referring to the same group as the Russian news reports.

“Twenty civilians, women and children … have been transferred to a suitable place and we hope that they will be evacuated to Zaporizhzhia, on territory controlled by Ukraine,” Sviatoslav Palamar said in a video posted on the battalion’s Telegram channel.

He reported heavy bombardment of the site overnight and said fighters were still going through the debris searching for civilians to rescue.

“All night, the enemy artillery bombarded the site,” he said. “The Azov regiment is still clearing the rubble to get civilians out. We hope this procedure will continue and that we will manage to evacuate all the civilians.”

A Red Cross representative also said 20 civilians were evacuated. Under the auspices of the United Nations and the Red Cross, more than 70 buses are at the plant to evacuate people.

The civilians were taken to the village of Bezimenne, which is under the control of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

After passing the necessary checks, they were taken to a camp for refugees. From there they are to be taken to the city of Zaporizhzhia, a territory under the control of Ukraine, accompanied by UN and Red Cross vehicles, as well as Russian and Donetsk military forces.

The UN confirmed on Sunday that an operation to evacuate people from a steel plant in the bombed-out Ukrainian city of Mariupol is underway.

“UN confirms that a safe passage operation is ongoing in Azovstal steel plant, in coordination with the ICRC and the parties to the conflict,” spokesman Jens Laerke said.

An estimated 1,000 civilians and several hundred Ukrainian soldiers are thought to be sheltering in the maze of underground tunnels underneath the steelworks. Many of them require medical attention. Ukraine has blamed the failure of numerous previous evacuation attempts on continued Russian shelling.

‘It will go further’

Video and images from inside the plant, shared with The Associated Press news agency by two Ukrainian women, who said their husbands were among the fighters refusing to surrender there, showed unidentified men with stained bandages; others had open wounds or amputated limbs.

A skeleton medical staff was treating at least 600 wounded people, said the women, who identified their husbands as members of the Azov Regiment. Some of the wounds were rotting with gangrene, they said.

In the video, the men say they eat just once daily and share as little as 1.5 liters (50 ounces) of water a day among four people, and that supplies inside the besieged facility are depleted.

One shirtless man appears to be in pain as he describes his wounds: two broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a dislocated arm that “was hanging on the flesh”.

“I want to tell everyone who sees this: If you will not stop this here, in Ukraine, it will go further to Europe,” he said.

Kateryna Prokopenko, wife of Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment, 
right, and Yulia Fedosiuk,
wife of Arseny Fedosiuk, another member of the Azov Regiment get emotional as
 they show photos of their husbands 
on their phones during an interview [Alessandra Tarantino/AP Photo]

This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows an overview of the 
Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol 
[Maxar Technologies via AP]

‘Soldiers matter too’

The women told the AP the video was taken last week in the maze of corridors and bunkers beneath the plant. They urged that Ukrainian fighters also be evacuated alongside civilians, warning they could be tortured and executed if captured.

“The lives of soldiers matter too,” Yuliia Fedusiuk said from Rome, Italy.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from the town of Dobropillya, said it was unclear when the civilians would arrive in Zaporizhzhia, about 150km (70 miles) to the north of Mariupol.

“We haven’t seen proof of arrival yet in Zaporizhzhia. There are thoughts about whether these people have been evacuated to the Russian side. It’s also not clear where these 46 civilians, according to the Russians, actually came from,” he said.

The latest satellite images from the United States-based Maxar Technologies, taken on Friday, show nearly all the buildings at the steelworks have been destroyed.

Some roofs have been holed or completely caved in, some buildings reduced to rubble.

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Russia’s Gazprom has suspended gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria, citing the two countries’ refusal to pay in Russian roubles, prompting accusations of “blackmail” and emergency talks at the European Union headquarters in Brussels.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Russian energy giant said it has “completely suspended gas supplies” to Poland’s PGNiG and Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz “due to the absence of payments in roubles”.

But only Hungary has agreed to do so, with other EU countries rejecting the demand as rewriting contracts that called for payment in euros.

Gazprom said Poland and Bulgaria had been told in a “timely manner” that payment for gas supplied from April 1 must be made it roubles.

It also warned the two countries that if they siphon gas intended for other European customers, the deliveries to Europe will be reduced to that amount.

Poland receives its Russian gas through the Yamal-Europe pipeline from Russia’s huge gas fields in the Arctic far north, which continues west to supply Germany and other European countries, while Bulgaria is supplied through pipes over Turkey.

The two countries responded by accusing Gazprom of breach of contract, while the Polish gas company threatened to take legal action.

“Despite the fulfillment of all obligations under the Yamal contract by PGNiG, on April 27 this year, Gazprom has stopped delivering natural gas,” the Polish group said in a statement.

“The limitation of natural gas supplies is a breach of the Yamal contract. PGNiG reserves the right to pursue claims in connection with the suspension of deliveries and will use all contractual rights vested in the company and rights under the law.”

Poland, which imports some 50 percent of its gas from Russia, has previously said it was ready to face any supply disruptions. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday that the country’s gas storage facilities were 76 percent full, while Climate Minister Anna Moskwa has declared that “there will be no shortage of gas in Polish homes”.

‘Political tool’

In Bulgaria on Wednesday, Prime Minister Kiril Petkov called the Russian demand to change its payment scheme a grave breach of a current contract.

He said Bulgaria, which relies on Russia for nearly 90 percent of its gas needs, was currently reviewing all of its contracts with Gazprom, including for transit of Russian gas to Serbia and Hungary, because “one-sided blackmail was not acceptable”.

Bulgarian Energy Minister Alexander Nikolov told reporters that his country can meet the needs of users for at least one month and that gas was still flowing as he spoke.

“Alternative supplies are available, and Bulgaria hopes that alternative routes and supplies will also be secured at the EU level,” Nikolov said.

“Obviously gas is used as a political tool,” he added. “As long as I am minister, Bulgaria will not negotiate under pressure, Bulgaria is not for sale and does not succumb to any trade counterpart.”

Before the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Europe received about 40 percent of its gas from Russia, mainly for residential heating, electrical generation and the fuel industry, with Germany particularly dependent on it. The imports have continued despite the war.

Approximately 60 percent of imports are paid in euros, and the rest in dollars. Putin’s demand was apparently intended to help bolster the Russian currency against Western sanctions.

In response to the Russian move, the EU began emergency talks, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling Gazprom’s announcement “yet another attempt by Russia to use gas as an instrument of blackmail”.

She said the region’s 27 countries were prepared to weather Russia’s cutoffs.

“Member states have put in place contingency plans for just such a scenario and we worked with them in coordination and solidarity,” she said. “We are mapping out our coordinated EU response. We will also continue working with international partners to secure alternative flows.”

In London, British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said Russia’s moves will only add to its status as an economic and political pariah.

“It [halting gas supply] will have a … very damaging effect on Russia as well because it is becoming further and further, more and more, not just a political pariah, but an economic pariah,” Raab told Sky News.

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