Most of the articles about this seem to just summarize now dependent everyone is on Russia. I haven't seen much discussion about actual preparations for this possibility. I assume operators of the natural gas network in Europe are trying to estimate how they might cope somewhat, but I think Germany and Italy had good cause to hesitate on approving SWIFT removal. Biden also included in his announcement of sanctions that they would try to work on increasing oil supply from other nations at least to help Americans somewhat at the pump, but I haven't heard much from Europe on how they'll deal with potential fallout of natural gas supply from Russia decreasing or shut off completely.<p>With tougher sanctions and everyone sending weapons to Ukraine, this has to be something Putin is considering, shouldn't we be trying to mitigate this before people's homes go cold?
The answer to your question is "yes", but I hope (and expect) that there is a lot happening that we don't know about.<p>Note that, even if Putin achieves a quick military victory in Ukraine and decides to keep the gas flowing (big "if"s), it could also get shut off by a prolonged guerilla war, if the gas is perceived as propping up Russian interests. Oil from Iraq and Libya had a hard time maintaining reliable supply while there's an insurgency going on. So it wouldn't even have to be Putin who decides to shut it off.