A victory hailed as “one of Moscow’s biggest defeats” by Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, was not won on the battlefield.

This week Ukraine closed off the last route allowing Russia to sell gas to Europe through its territory.

With the expiry of a deal to use the Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod pipeline for transit, Vladimir Putin’s war machine was dealt a blow that will cost billions of euros per year.

But it also creates fresh supply headaches for a handful of European countries that remain dependent on the Kremlin, pushing up gas prices across the whole Continent – including in Britain.

On Thursday the benchmark European gas price hovered at around €50 (£41) per megawatt hour, the highest level since October 2023.

“There were quite a few people in the market who still thought a deal would be done last minute,” says Jack Sharples, a gas market expert at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

That was despite repeated warnings from Ukraine that it was unwilling to renew any deal that would boost Moscow’s coffers. Sales via the Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod, which is also known as the Brotherhood pipeline, were thought to be worth up to $6.5bn (£5.3bn) per year to Gazprom, the Russian state gas company.