BERLIN — As Berlin reels from the energy price shock triggered by the Iran war, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be seizing his moment to ratchet up even more pressure on Berlin’s oil supplies.
Moscow is set to stop the transit of Kazakh oil to Germany via a branch of the Druzhba pipeline from May 1. That poses a major potential headache because Kazakhstan supplies almost 20 percent of the oil to the large refinery that produces 90 percent of the gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and heating oil for Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg.
While Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the supply halt was “related to technical capabilities,” the Kremlin will be well aware that any energy supply disruptions could play into the hands of the far-right, Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is expected to triumph in regional elections in eastern Germany in the fall.
“By stopping these shipments and creating obstacles for exports to Germany, the Russians want to fuel the oil crisis,” said Szymon Kardaś, an expert on Russia’s energy policy at the European Council of Foreign Relations.
Germany weaned itself off Russian natural gas and oil in the aftermath of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But Germany continues to receive a modest amount of Kazakh oil via a branch of the Druzhba pipeline that runs through Russia, giving the Kremlin some remaining leverage over Germany.
Experts say the Kremlin may now have found an opportunity amid Germany’s fuel crunch to exercise that leverage. News of the cut to Kazakh supply was first reported by Reuters.
“It’s a convenient moment to increase the grief the refineries are in,” said Sergey Vakulenko, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. But Vakulenko, an oil and gas industry expert, suggested there could be an additional motive.
If Russia seeks to redirect Kazakh oil supplies to Germany via alternative channels, the shipments would likely need to transit through Baltic ports such as Ust-Luga or Primorsk, which have increasingly come under attack by the Ukrainian military as it looks to cut the oil revenue the Kremlin is using to fund its war.
If Germany were also to need these ports to receive Kazakh oil, that could potentially pressure the Ukrainians to stop their drone attacks on these ports, Vakulenko said, acting as a kind of “shield” for Moscow.
The energy minister of Kazakhstan, which has close links to Moscow, last week suggested a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s energy infrastructure may have caused the disruption of Kazakh oil flows to Germany.
It remains difficult to independently verify the cause of the disruption, but some German politicians say the motive is already clear.
“Just as it has done in the past, Russia is once again trying to blackmail Germany,” said Michael Kellner, a lawmaker focused on energy policy for the Greens.
Helping the AfD
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s spokesperson, Stefan Kornelius, last week said the fuel supply in the northeast of the country will remain stable and that the government is “working on alternative options.”
But although the volumes of Kazakh oil supplied to the PCK Schwedt refinery in northeastern Germany are not great — namely about 43,000 barrels a day out of a total of up to 240,000 barrels — every bit of added pressure on the German government could potentially work to Moscow’s advantage.
That’s particularly the case in the former East Germany, where the Russia-friendly AfD is ascendant and could well capitalize on the issue of regional fuel shortages. The halt of Kazakh oil flows to the Schwedt refinery will also affect the states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania, where voters will go to polls in regional votes set for September. In both states, the AfD is far ahead in polls.
The AfD has made rising energy costs and economic weakness central campaign issues, and portrays closer ties to Moscow as the solution. Only days ago, the party’s parliamentary group called for renewed gas deals with Russia via the Nord Stream pipelines.
That is certainly a topic where the Kremlin is aligned with the AfD. Russia’s ultimate aim is to apply political pressure on German leaders to normalize relations and resume imports of Russian energy.
“Without Russian gas, at the time of the worst energy crisis in history, Germany is not just heading towards long-term stagnation but an immediate unrecoverable economic collapse,” Russian sovereign wealth fund chief Kirill Dmitriev, who is also a top Putin ally, said in a social media post.
The AfD is already blaming Merz’s government for the cut of Kazakh oil flows.
“The consequences are predictable: higher prices, uncertainty among employees, and a further loss of confidence in the federal government,” said René Aust, the AfD’s group leader in the European Parliament.
Aust added he would not be surprised if voters in eastern Germany took to the streets this summer to demand lower energy prices. “If our citizens take to the streets, the AfD will stand by their side,” he said.
