As UN inspectors seek to avert a nuclear disaster on Ukraine's front line, the West and Russia have wounded each other's economies as Moscow keeps its main gas pipeline to Germany shut while it's threatened with price caps on oil exports.
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Russia's state-controlled energy giant Gazprom blamed a technical fault in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline for the delay on Friday. But the high-level manoeuvres in energy politics were seen as an extension of the war, and the ramifications would be felt far beyond Ukraine.
The announcements came as Moscow and Kyiv traded blame over their actions at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where UN inspectors arrived on Thursday on a mission to help avert a catastrophe.
Vladimir Rogov, a pro-Russian official in the Zaporizhzhia region, said Ukrainian forces had shelled Europe's largest nuclear plant several times overnight and the main power line to the station had been downed, forcing it to use reserve power sources, as occurred last week.
Reuters could not immediately substantiate his account.
Gazprom's indefinite delay to resuming gas deliveries will deepen Europe's problems securing fuel for winter with living costs already surging, led by energy prices.
Nord Stream 1, which runs under the Baltic Sea to supply Germany and others, had been due to resume operating after a three-day halt for maintenance on Saturday morning but the pipeline operator reported zero flows hours later.
Moscow has blamed sanctions, imposed by the West after Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine, for hampering routine operations and maintenance of Nord Stream 1. Brussels and Washington accuse Russia of using gas as an economic weapon.
The United States said it had been collaborating with Europe to ensure sufficient supplies were available for winter.
Finance ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy democracies - Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States - said on Friday a cap on the price of Russian oil was meant to "reduce ... Russia's ability to fund its war of aggression whilst limiting the impact of Russia's war on global energy prices".
The Kremlin, which calls the conflict "a special military operation", said it would stop selling oil to any countries that implemented the cap.
During the first six months of the war, thousands of people were killed and Ukrainian cities reduced to rubble, and now there is the danger of a nuclear calamity.
A United Nations inspection team, led by its chief Rafael Grossi, braved intense shelling to reach the Zaporizhzhia plant on Thursday.
Grossi, after returning to Ukrainian-held territory, said the physical integrity of the plant had been violated several times.
He said on Friday he expected to produce a report early next week, and two experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection team would stay at the plant for the longer term.
A reactor at the site was reconnected to Ukraine's grid on Friday, a day after it shut down due to shelling near the site, Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom said.
The site sits on the south bank of a huge reservoir on the Dnipro River, 10 kilometres across the water from Ukrainian positions.
Each side has accused the other of shelling near the facility, which is still operated by Ukrainian staff and supplies more than a fifth of Ukraine's electricity in peacetime.
Kyiv also accuses Russia of using it to shield its weapons, which Moscow denies. Russia has resisted international calls to pull troops out of the plant and demilitarise the area.
Ukraine's state nuclear company said Russia had barred the IAEA team from the plant's crisis centre and that would make it difficult to make an impartial assessment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the IAEA team to go further, despite the difficulties.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Ukraine continued to use weapons from its Western allies to shell the plant.
Australian Associated Press
