The European Union's latest gas dispute with Russia blew up over the weekend after bubbling beneath the surface for months. On Saturday, Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom cut deliveries to Austria after the Alpine nation threatened to impound some of the gas as compensation for a contractual dispute it had won.

The Austrian utility OMV said in a statement that no gas delivery was made from 6 a.m. local time (0500 UTC/GMT) on Saturday.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg accused Moscow of "once again using energy as a weapon."

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said Russian President Vladimir Putin was trying to "blackmail" Austria and the bloc. She said the European Union was "prepared for this and ready for winter."

Austria, along with Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, is still heavily reliant on Russia for gas. Vienna said it had sufficient stocks to cover the shortfall. OMV said last week that domestic gas storage was at more than 90%.

But EU natural gas prices rose to a one-year high as traders got wind of the worsening dispute. Between Thursday and Tuesday, prices had shot up by more than 7% to €46.63 ($49.34)........

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