Can Putin plunge Europe into darkness?

Major European countries, Germany, France and Britain, responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin's threat to cut gas supplies to "unfriendly countries" unless they were paid for in the Russian currency, the ruble, with a refusal.
Putin’s cutting off gas means exposing a number of countries in the world that imposed sanctions on his country due to his army’s invasion of Ukraine to a shortage of energy imports, which reach Germany, Denmark, France, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Britain, Belgium, Portugal, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, while Russian oil imports reach the Netherlands and Germany Poland, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, South Korea and the United States. In 2012, the European Union countries imported 67% of Russian oil exports.
The United States of America and its European allies tried to persuade the oil-exporting countries to pump urgently to avoid the global shortage in energy exports, but the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies rejected these pressures and satisfied themselves with a small monthly increase, and on the other hand, US President Joe Biden announced, yesterday, a significant increase. In oil production, by releasing 1 million barrels per day from the Federal Reserve for a period of 6 months, it was estimated that its allies would withdraw 30 to 50 million barrels per day from their reserves.
Regardless of the Russian propaganda goals about the invasion of Ukraine, a large part of the war practically revolves around the control of global energy and food resources. Until late 2005, all Russian gas exports to Europe (80%) flowed through Ukraine.
The invasion plan appears in contrast with previous Russian massive projects to avoid the Ukrainian lands, which were represented by Moscow’s grand plans to build other pipelines, such as Nord Stream 1 and 2 under the Baltic Sea, and “Yamal-Europe” (through Belarus), and lines under the Black Sea. change?
In 2012, according to various sources, Moscow discovered the possibility of natural gas reserves in the Black Sea region controlled by Ukraine, centered around the Crimea, estimated at two trillion cubic meters, and discoveries were made of potential gas and oil fields around Donetsk and Kharkiv in the east, and in the Carpathians in the west. With the start of granting exploration to Western companies, the possibility of Ukraine becoming an oil state competing with Russia increased, as it would have facilitated its entry into the European Union.
The European Union, through the virtual summit with China, began yesterday, Friday, trying to push Beijing to take a tougher stance with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Chinese position will focus, in the end, on balancing profits and losses from Russia’s support, which will provide Beijing with a cheap source of oil and gas, and will also form a bond It has in its claim to control Taiwan and persecute the Muslim Uyghurs, but it will constitute, on the other hand, a strategic obstacle to China's plans that are based on enormous relations with the giants of the world's economy, America, Europe, Japan and South Korea, as well as on globalization, industrialization, trade, investment and opening borders.
Putin's call to pay for gas in rubles carries a great contradiction that weakens a lot of its impact. Its main meaning is based on Europe's acquiescence to his invasion of Ukraine, which is not possible, and the call represents a suicidal gamble that Putin cannot actually implement. Stopping the gas will cause a major shortage of energy within countries' markets. The opposition to the invasion of Ukraine, which will have serious but solvable consequences, and the blow to the Russian economy as a whole, which is based on these imports, and is mainly based on exports, will be fatal.