No gas out, no Euros in to Russia. This won’t last long. But it’s a tough lesson of depending on Russia for a vital need.
Ukraine wasn't paying because they tap the same pipeline for their internal use and figured Russia would never halt shipments because they had pilfered a few percent for years and Russian never shut down shipments. Russia did shut the gas off so the EU would put pressure on Ukraine to pay up and to stop stealing so much that to get a million CF out on the Europe end they had to put about 105% of that in on the Russia end. Yeah, Ukraine was up to pilfering about five percent of the flow right off the top, reselling it, and not paying their bill to boot.
'09 is exactly why Russia and Germany built a bypass to Ukraine in the Baltic and are now building another. Germany wants what it pays for whether Ukraine pays or not and without Ukraine stealing so much it drives the price up. If Ukraine had been content with pilfering a percent or two and paid their bills, there would have never been the first alternative route.