The Transatlantic Energy Landscape—One Year After Russia’s Invasion

Event Summary

Since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine commenced in February 2022, the Kremlin’s long-term strategy of weaponizing energy resource and infrastructure dependence against western democratic norms has reached its apex. The Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin has notoriously used energy as a political weapon aimed at extracting geopolitical concessions from democracies across the European continent through real and threatened natural gas cutoffs for year. The Kremlin intentionally created a natural gas crisis in the year running up to its reinvasion of Ukraine to undermine EU foreign policy latitude. Over the past year, it has conducted more dramatic wartime energy weaponization, including major gas cutoffs across the European Union, and maritime activities near European offshore energy infrastructure that raised Transatlantic security concerns. Most distressing of all, for the past six months, the Russian military has conducted kinetic missile, rocket, and drone strikes against Ukrainian civil energy infrastructure aimed at exacerbating the wartime humanitarian crisis for Ukrainian civilians this winter.

This set of two panels looks at Russia’s current strategy of wartime energy weaponization through the lens of its long-term trend of using energy as a weapon against Europe. Both discussions explore new futures, with global powers countering Russian malign energy actions and influence.

Panel One: The End of the Russian Energy Era in Europe: What’s Next for Moscow

MODERATOR:

Dr. Anna Mikulska, Department of Russian and Eastern European Studies, University of Pennsylvania

SPEAKERS:

Ambassador John Herbst, Senior Director, Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center
Vladimir Milov, Vice President for International Advocacy, Free Russia Foundation
Dr. Tatiana Mitrova, Research Fellow, Center for Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, New York, NY
Professor Alan Riley, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, Brussels, Belgium

PANEL 2: Countering Russian Energy Weaponization from Lisbon to Kyiv: Sanctions, Export Controls, Physical Infrastructure Protection

MODERATOR:

Dr. Benjamin L. Schmitt, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, University of Pennsylvania

SPEAKERS:

Paul Massaro, Senior Advisor for Sanctions and Counter-Corruption, U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Ambassador Richard Morningstar, Founding Chairman, Atlantic Council, Global Energy Center, Washington, D.C.
Olena Pavlenko, President, DiXi Group Energy Think Tank, Kyiv, Ukraine
Nataliia Shapoval, Vice President for Policy Research, Kyiv School of Economics, Kyiv, Ukraine