Russia hits back at Finland by halting all gas exports

The Finnish state-owned gas company Gasum said that “natural gas supplies to Finland under Gasum’s supply contract have been cut off” by Russia on Saturday morning at 7am local time

The headquarters of Russian gas monopoly Gazprom in St Petersburg (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky)

Russia halted gas exports to neighbouring Finland on Saturday, a highly symbolic move that came just days after the Nordic country announced it wanted to join Nato and marked a likely end to Finland’s nearly 50 years of importing natural gas from Russia.

The measure taken by the Russian energy giant Gazprom was in line with an earlier announcement following Helsinki’s refusal to pay for the gas in rubles as Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded European countries do since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.