Putin gas cutoff shakes up Europe at little cost to Kremlin

By LORNE COOK, DANICA KIRKA and FRANK JORDANS
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin is putting pressure on European governments with his proposal to pay for oil and gas in rubles. That pressure has ratcheted up after Poland and Bulgaria were cut off for not going along with the plan. It didn’t cost Putin much, but now countries are wondering who might be next. The European Union’s executive commission says going along with the ruble payment plan would violate sanctions. But there’s enough wiggle room that countries worried about the economic impact of a sudden energy cutoff might play by Putin’s rules. And that could put a crack in the EU’s common front over the war in Ukraine.