Ready To Resume Gas Supplies To Europe, Will Not Sell Oil At Lower Price Cap: Putin

Putin on Wednesday said an oil price cap discussed by European leaders "a threat to the well-being of billions of people".

Amid the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said an oil price cap discussed by European leaders "a threat to the well-being of billions of people", after saying Russia will not sell to countries implementing it, as reported by the news agency AFP.

"With their cavalier decisions, some Western politicians are destroying the global market economy and are in fact posing a threat to the well-being of billions of people," Putin told an energy forum in Moscow.

President Biden and European leaders have encouraged more oil production to ease gas costs and punish Moscow for its aggression in Ukraine. Putin has been blamed for involving energy as a weapon against nations restricting its intrusion of Ukraine, and the optics of the choice couldn't be missed, revealed The New York Times.

The White House was not happy. "The president is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC Plus to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of Putin's invasion of Ukraine," Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said in a statement. The cut of two million barrels a day represents about 2 percent of global oil production.

IAEA Chief Meets Putin

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Mariano Grossi raised concerns over the safety and security of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

The meeting between the IAEA director general with Putin in St Petersburg, Russia on Tuesday came days after military strikes in and around Zaporizhzhya. 

The situation around the plant "has become increasingly dangerous, precarious and challenging, with frequent military attacks that can also threaten nuclear safety and security," Grossi added, arguing that ongoing shelling is "tremendously irresponsible."

The Kremlin press release quoted Grossi as saying, " as you say, the issues related to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy go down in history, and of course, Russia has always been a major part of all these efforts, technologically speaking and otherwise, and for the IAEA, of course, one of the main interlocutors in the many areas of work that the agency has."

The IAEA chief highlighted that in the present times with energy issues, and global warming, many things are related to nuclear energy and also what could be the role of nuclear energy in the present and future also.

Meanwhile, seven people have reportedly died and eight were left injured in a fresh round of missile shelling by Moscow despite concerns raised by the Group of Seven (G-7) leaders over the Russian escalation in Ukraine. The incident took place at a market in the east Ukraine city of Avdiivka near the frontline, a regional governor said.

"At least seven dead and eight wounded as a result of the shelling this morning on Avdiivka. The Russians struck the central market, where many people were at that time," the Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on the Telegram social media platform as quoted by the news agency AFP.

This comes after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky held an emergency meeting with the Group of Seven (G-7) nations and urged them to provide immediate assistance to Ukraine with air defence systems in the wake of the Russian escalation. The West also warned Putin of severe consequences if Russia used nuclear weapons on Ukraine.