>Are you saying Putin hasn’t used threats to cut gas supplies to Europe to attempt to deter the West from helping Ukraine?

If that was addressed to me: I'm pointing out [for the nth time] that, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU and UK announced their intentions to completely stop buying Russian gas & oil. This has now been spun into the narrative that [as I quoted above, from the Economist article] "It [Russia] has used cuts in gas supplies, or the threat of them, to try to blackmail Europe since the early days of its invasion of Ukraine..."

This is the exact opposite of the truth. Russia continued to supply oil & gas and pledged to keep on doing so, right from day 1 of the invasion of Ukraine. It was the EU & UK which decided to weaponise energy supplies and they are now suffering the consequences. Hence the 'Ministry of Truth' version of events that we're seeing now, repeated over and over again til it becomes fact.

Amusing also that pointing this out gets your post downvoted and flagged to oblivion. Kind of reinforces my point, no?

The administration had previously waived some recommended sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Presumably they'd enact new sanctions that would make it impossible to operate the pipeline.

Sanctions. Not sure on what exactly, but could be for example on the compressor turbines.

North America (US and Canada) is a powerhouse in hydrocarbon technology. A lot of the fields in Russia are running Schlumberger technology. We'll see how that goes forward in the sanctions world, will probably end up nationalized/stolen like the various Boeings and Airbuses from European leasing companies.

He meant terminating the deal obviously. It's the idea that the president pre announces sabotage operations that's ridiculous.

Not just Biden.

Nuland and at least one more offical made threats back in January/February itself. I think it was Blinken.

Not a very clever thing to do.