Russian strongman Vladimir Putin threw in the towel on his $40 billion pet pipeline project on Monday, a sign that European resistance to Moscow is slowly wrenching the energy weapon from Putin's hand.
By pulling the plug on the South Stream pipeline, meant to bypass Ukraine and supply Europe with natural gas across the Black Sea, Putin seemed to acknowledge that European sanctions all but torpedoed the financial prospects of the massive project while continued pushback from the European Union and some key member states, such as Bulgaria, sealed its doom.
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