Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that his country is not using energy as a weapon against Europe and that Russia stands ready to help the region as its energy crisis continues.

Describing reports that Russia has withheld gas supplies to Europe, Putin called such accusations as "politically-motivated blather" and there was "nothing to support it [the idea] that we use energy as a kind of weapon." On the contrary, he said, Russia was "expanding its supplies to Europe.".

Speaking ahead of the panel, which includes the CEOs of ExxonMobil, BP, TotalEnergies and Mercedez-Benz, Putin said Europe should "not deal in blame-shifting" over the energy crisis in the region and that European countries had not done enough to replenish gas reserves in the summer.

Nonetheless, Russia said it was ready to meet its contractual supply obligations and to discuss additional actions and cooperation with its European partners, Putin said, stating that Russia had already increased its gas supplies to Europe by 15% so far this year.

However, critics of the Kremlin said that Russia had purposefully undersupplied the market in order to manufacture the crisis in order to accentuate and highlight Europe's dependence on its supplies, an accusation Russia denies.

as well as eastern European countries Poland and Ukraine, who say the pipeline increases Europe's dependence on Russian energy supplies and weakens the region in terms of energy security.