TEHRAN, July 20. /TASS/. The launch of Nord Stream 2 is one of the ways to increase Russian gas supplies to Europe although half of its capacity has already been allocated for domestic consumption, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists.
"We have another route ready - it is Nord Stream 2. It can be launched <…>," Putin said talking about the ways of resolving the energy crisis in Europe.
That said, he noted that this route currently "is problematic." "About a month and a half - two months ago, in a conversation with [German] Chancellor [Olaf Scholz] we discussed this subject, I raised this issue, said that Gazprom had allocated capacities, had created these capacities and he needs to do something about this, they cannot be up in the air forever," Putin said. According to him, the German chancellor responded that there were more important issues. "So, I had to caution that then we would use half of the volume designated for Nord Stream for domestic consumption and use. And Gazprom <…> has already done this so even we launch Nord Stream 2 tomorrow, this won’t be 55 bln cubic meters annually but exactly half of it," the Russian leader stressed.