# Europe without Russian gas

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Europe without Russian gas," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/europe-without-russian-gas/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's argument that Europe needs Russia more than Russia needs Europe, made from what he has physically encountered rather than from figures. Speaking in Nottingham in 2025 he found the concert hall so cold that the audience complained, and was told by the manager that the venue could not afford to heat itself without Russian gas. He reports the same of homes in Britain, Germany and Greece, where American gas is simply too expensive to substitute.*

- **The occasion:** A speech in Nottingham, spring 2025
- **What happened:** The hall was so cold that everybody complained
- **The manager's explanation:** 'We're just not getting Russian gas and we can't afford to heat the place'
- **Where else he reports it:** Most homes in the UK and Germany; Greece, where he spent the winter
- **The conclusion:** 'The Russians don't need Europe anywhere near how Europe needs Russia'

**Europe without Russian gas** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s illustration of an asymmetry he treats as decisive in the war: that the pain of the rupture falls on the European side.

## The cold hall

*"When I was in the UK just a few weeks ago, I was giving a speech in Nottingham … a gorgeous historic place, big round event centre. It was so freezing cold in there that literally everybody was complaining. And finally the manager told us: we're just not getting Russian gas and we can't afford to heat the place. That's it."*[1] The auto-caption records him naming the venue as the Royal Albert Hall; the round concert hall in Nottingham is the Royal Concert Hall.

## Not only the venue

He generalises from it without qualification: *"that's most of the homes in the UK and Germany and Greece. I was in Greece this winter and it was freezing everywhere you went, because they're not getting Russian gas any more and it's just too expensive to buy it from the United States or elsewhere."*[2]

## What he draws from it

*"So yeah, I've come to the conclusion that the Russians don't need Europe anywhere near how Europe needs Russia."*[2] He extends the same asymmetry to China, whose exports of rare earth metals to the United States he says he cannot account for at all — *"I don't know why they sell us rare earth metals"* — and treats both as instances of a West that has lost the leverage it still believes it holds.[3]

## See also

- [Ukraine as a proxy war](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ukraine-proxy-war)
- [Nuclear war is winnable](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nuclear-war-is-winnable)
- [Kiriakou's Ukraine settlement prediction](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ukraine-settlement-prediction)

## Sources

1. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 13:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=821s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/
2. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 14:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=852s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/
3. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 14:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=886s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/europe-without-russian-gas/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt