Gazprom Is Done

Dead

I’m gloriously late on this story.

Usually, there’s a good reason for that—logistics, sourcing, competing priorities. This time, it was just the flood of other stories that kept pulling focus. But the EU’s 18th sanctions package kept humming in the background, like a siren in my waiting room. I couldn’t shake it. Not because of what it said—but because of what it didn’t.

For the first time, the European Union sanctioned Rosneft’s Indian subsidiary, a move that sent both New Delhi and the Kremlin into a mild panic. Russia’s oil influence had been left mostly untouched in India—until now. Moscow wasn’t amused. Neither was the Modi government.

But just weeks earlier, that same Indian government had something else to celebrate.

Operation Sindoor, a deep-penetration Indian military strike into Pakistani territory, had targeted multiple militant training camps and at least two high-value Pakistani military installations. It was launched in retaliation for a brutal terrorist attack in Pahalgam that killed dozens. The strike marked a doctrinal shift: not just a cross-border raid, but an assertion of India’s right to strike deep into enemy territory in response to terrorism.

And the West? It said nothing. No condemnation. No diplomatic scolding. And rightly so.

The Indian military executed a clean, high-precision operation that dismantled terror networks across the Line of Control. Europe was correct to stay silent—and just as correct to finally act against Russian operations cloaked inside Indian territory. I only wish they'd done it sooner.

But while the silence over Sindoor was justified, the broader pattern of diplomatic indulgence toward India’s Russia play is not.

Double-dealers aren’t born. We manufacture them—by looking the other way, by excusing duplicity when it suits our energy needs or our geopolitical caution. India is learning, slowly and smartly, to play all sides. That doesn’t mean the West needs to applaud it.

If Europe wants to keep India close, it must get smarter with language. Call these sanctions what they are: anti-terror sanctions. The phrase matters. In a world thick with ambiguity, the right words pierce through the noise.

India’s people deserve clarity. They’ve endured more than enough from terrorism over the decades. The current government won’t call Rosneft’s footprint what it is, and Indian media certainly won’t. But Europe can. And should.

Here’s hoping the 19th package does what the 18th finally started—cutting off Russian operations in India, openly and unapologetically.

In parallel, the EU dropped the Russian oil price cap to 15% below market rates, effectively pegging the ceiling at $47.60 per barrel. It’s a smart shift. The old system required endless renegotiation every six months—an exhausting loop of recalibration. The new structure is a floating cap, indexed to market prices, which means the EU no longer has to revisit the number every time oil volatility spikes. It introduces stability. And more importantly, it does so on European terms. This was an EU decision, not a G7 consensus.

The United Kingdom followed on Friday, adopting the same $47.60 cap. From September 3rd, insurance providers, shippers, and brokers operating under EU and UK jurisdiction will be legally barred from facilitating any Russian crude exports above that threshold. Enforcement is now streamlined across the European continent.

But beyond Europe, the picture is more fragmented.

Canada, which currently holds the rotating G7 presidency, has yet to formally announce whether it will align with the new price cap. And the United States, as expected, will not sign off on the reduction. That’s not a flaw—it’s design. Washington’s strategic logic here is intentional and layered. If you want the full rationale, I’ve already unpacked it in the final section of my earlier story—feel free to circle back there for a deeper dive.

For now, the takeaway is clear: Europe is taking the initiative, and in doing so, it’s setting a new standard for sanctions enforcement. Washington may choose a different playbook—but the EU, at least on this front, has stopped waiting for consensus.

The biggest decision of all—the one with the deepest structural consequence—was the move to put a formal, irreversible end to Nord Stream.

The Nord Stream pipelines—Nord Stream 1 and 2—were not just infrastructure projects. They were geopolitical weapons wrapped in steel. At over €20 billion, the projects didn’t just deliver cheap Russian gas to Europe. It locked Europe into dependence and crowded out every other possible supplier. You cannot build a functioning European gas market when Russian gas is flowing directly and cheaply into Germany’s industrial core. The math doesn’t work.

Here’s the problem: natural gas production requires immense upfront capital—billions of euros sunk into exploration, processing, and transport infrastructure. No private or state-backed investor will commit to that scale of risk if the market is already flooded by a monopoly supplier with political protection and sunk-cost advantages. Nord Stream wasn’t just a pipeline. It was a capital deterrent.

It froze the European gas sector into paralysis.

That lock is now broken.

On 18 July 2025, the EU imposed what is effectively a permanent ban on the entire Nord Stream system. The sanctions include a “full transaction ban on Nord Stream 1 and 2, including the provision of goods or services, thus preventing the completion, maintenance, operation, and any future use of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines.”

That’s the legal kill shot. But it’s more than legal—it’s structural and political.

No one will be able to revive Nord Stream, because to do that would require lifting EU sanctions. And lifting sanctions in Brussels is not a matter of flipping a switch. It requires full consensus among all member states. Every single country has to agree. Even if that threshold were ever lowered to a majority vote (which it isn’t right now), it’s almost inconceivable that a European majority would vote to resurrect Russia’s monopoly grip—especially now that Norway, the Netherlands, and other European producers are expanding their output and seeing returns from a more competitive gas market.

The energy landscape has fundamentally shifted since the shutdown of Russian gas flows in 2022. LNG imports surged. New terminals came online in Germany, Poland, and the Baltics. Interconnectivity improved. Prices initially spiked—but then stabilized, not because of Russian goodwill, but because Europe diversified. And diversification means independence.

What this ban does is lock in that independence. It sends a message not just to Moscow, but to any future European politician who might think about rebooting the dependency cycle: you will not have the legal means to do it.

So that’s it.

As of 18 July 2025, Nord Stream is dead. Legally. Structurally. Politically. Economically.

Gazprom Is Done.

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