I'm John Batchel with my colleague Gregory Coplech, has returned from Europe in conversations with Europeans and his colleagues, the Iranians in diaspora.

Moscow.

The remark that I saw Mr. Putin make following the revelations of the attacks on the gas fields

and also the price spike in natural gas and in oil was that the quote was, a new pricing reality,

Mr. Putin said. By that, I'm taking it that Moscow a few days ago was said to be making

$150 million extra a day because of the price spike in oil, maybe higher now.

The Shadow Fleet has been desanctioned by order of the President of the United States and is now delivering its oil to India and to China and wherever else it has customers.

It had 140, maybe 140 million barrels at sea, and sanctions was keeping it back, but it's now being delivered.

Mr. Putin has lots of energy and natural gas, not as much as he wants, because they can take their fields, their storage is filled, and they have to take their fields to maximum, but he has it to offer.

And the Europeans are not averse to this offer. There are voices, Hungary, for example,

the prime minister there, and other states that are whispering, why are we so stubborn about

what's at hand, what our population is at risk. Russia says we have oil and gas.

We'll sell it to you. The deal that I'm told is possible is Dunbass for oil and gas. And not

everybody is not tempted. Now, is that a direction to move? Is Putin managing this? Because

one way you can interpret this is the longer the uncertainty goes on at the Strait of

Hormuz than in the Gulf, the more money Moscow makes and the more attractive Russia

becomes to the Europeans?

There's no question about it.

But the Ukrainians obviously wanted to make sure that there was no going back to a major supply of oil and gas to the Western European states,

which was why the Ukrainian government, essentially, the one behind,

blowing up the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in the Baltic.

So the question is, yes, Russia is ready to deliver.

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