Putin to Europe: Freeze, freeze, the wolf's tail!

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum threatened to leave the European Union (EU) without energy for winter.

According to the Putin, Russia will not supply energy resources to the EU unless it is provided for by contracts, nor will Russia succumb to the imposition of conditions.

"We will not supply anything outside the contracts. We will not do anything that they try to force us to do. The only thing we can do is to keep on saying the line from a well-known Russian fairytale — "Freeze, freeze, the wolf's tail!"" Vladimir Putin said.

Putin thus made a reference to the Russian folklore tale "The Fox and the Wolf." In the tale, the cunning fox made the stupid wolf catch fish in the frozen river by putting his tail into an ice hole. The fox would hop around the desperate and hungry wolf saying "freeze, freeze, the wolf's tail" until the ice hole froze trapping the wolf in the ice. Men from the village then came and beat the wolf for all the bad things that he had done to them in summer. The wolf struggled and escaped, but his tail was left in the frozen ice hole.