This is not a joke btw.

Back in 2014, when Europe and Russia were planning on building another gas pipeline - what would have been known as the “South Stream” - the US insisted that the pipeline cannot be owned by the gas producer and forced them to outsource the pipeline ownership to a third party. (Michael Hudson compares this to an apartment building having their elevators owned by another company, who will charge whatever fee they want every time you want to go to a specific floor) The EU complies but Putin said nobody is that stupid and scrapped the pipeline. Turkey became the gas hub for southern Europe instead.

And that’s just one of many examples.