“Let’s drink to Russian gas,” says a Gazprom anthem on YouTube. But the gas monopoly no longer swaggers as it did when European gas demand and prices were soaring. First-quarter rouble profits under Russian accounting standards fell almost 80 per cent year-on-year. The reason: Gazprom is caught in a vice.

The Russian giant last year locked up long-term supplies from central Asia, notably Turkmenistan, by agreeing to stop paying discount prices and to move to international market rates.