Russia cuts off a major supply of natural gas to Poland, which has offered robust support to Ukraine.

WARSAW — Russia’s state fuel firm has introduced the “full suspension” of pure fuel deliveries to Poland by way of a serious pipeline, its Polish counterpart mentioned on Tuesday, in an escalation of the financial battle stemming from the struggle in Ukraine.

Poland will get greater than 45 p.c of its pure fuel from Russia, and slicing off that offer may significantly wound Poland’s potential to warmth houses and run companies. In contrast to a few of its neighbors, Poland burns coal, not fuel, for many of its electrical energy, so it’s much less susceptible on that entrance.

For the reason that Russian invasion on Feb. 24, the USA and its allies have imposed more and more stringent financial sanctions on Russia, badly damaging the Russian financial system. For the European Union, the hardest a part of that marketing campaign has been making an attempt to wean itself off Russian fossil fuels, Moscow’s foremost supply of international income.

The bloc has vowed to chop off its giant imports of Russian oil and coal, although over a interval of months because it searches for replacements and adjusts to greater gasoline prices. However Europe is much more depending on Russian fuel, and ending these imports could be extra economically damaging; E.U. ministers have mentioned they are going to scale back the circulation from Russia, however not shut it off till 2030.

PGNiG, the state-owned firm that’s Poland’s foremost purchaser of Russian fuel, mentioned that it had obtained a letter from Russia’s state-controlled vitality behemoth, Gazprom, informing it that each one deliveries by way of the Yamal pipeline could be halted. It didn’t specify when this is able to occur.

Yamal stretches from northern Siberia to Poland and Germany. Many of the circulation from Russia to Poland passes by way of it. It’s not clear the transfer would have an effect on provides to Germany, by far the most important importer of Russian fuel, as there are different main pipelines connecting the 2 nations, together with Nord Stream 1.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has demanded that vitality gross sales be paid for in rubles to prop up his faltering foreign money, although the contracts for international gross sales typically require fee in {dollars}. Poland and different nations have refused to pay in rubles.

Russia has been notably indignant at Poland due to Warsaw’s sturdy assist for Ukraine, which has obtained a lot of its NATO-supplied arms by way of Polish territory.