Sharjah 24 – AFP: Gazprom said Thursday it would stop sending natural gas via the Polish section of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline following Russia's retaliatory sanctions against Western companies.

The pipeline can carry up to 33 billion cubic meters of gas from fields in Russia's Yamal peninsula and western Siberia through Belarus and Poland to Germany.

On Wednesday, Russia announced sanctions on more than 30 energy companies, including Poland's EuRoPol GAZ S.A., the owner of the Polish part of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, in reaction to measures adopted by Western nations over Ukraine.

"For Gazprom this means a ban on the use of a gas pipeline owned by EuRoPol GAZ to transport Russian gas through Poland," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said in a statement.

Kupriyanov also accused Poland of "repeatedly" violating the rights of Gazprom as a EuRoPol shareholder and sanctioning the Russian energy giant in late April.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Thursday accused Russia of using energy as "a weapon".

Russia can also ship gas directly to Germany through the Nord Stream pipeline that runs under the Baltic Sea.

Operators on Thursday reported a drop in gas supplies from Russia via a key Ukrainian pipeline to Europe for a second day in a row.

Unprecedented in their scale and speed, Western sanctions over Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine have ranged from freezing assets to export bans on strategic products like semiconductors and financial sanctions.