Â鶹Éç

Available for over a year

Alongside the fighting in Ukraine, an economic war is also being fought in parallel between Russia and the West. Earlier today, the Russian state-owned energy firm Gazprom announced it was cutting off gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria, saying it was because both countries had refused to pay for those supplies in Russian roubles - something Moscow had demanded to try to get round sanctions on the central bank and its access to dollars.  Bulgaria's energy minister Alexander Nikolov said Bulgaria had paid for Russian gas deliveries for April but the payment had been returned. He believes that Poland and Bulgaria have been singled out because of their influence and long tradition of relations with Russia, and that he sees this as a "test" for the EU, on how united a pro-Ukraine alliance could be. He says that Bulgaria relied on close to 90 percent of its gas from Russia, but that they were setting up alternative sources. "This is a test - on how strong, sustainable and united we can be in this war." Photo: A gas station of the Russian company Gazprom in Sofia, Bulgaria, 27 April 2022 Credit: EPA