US Once Again Saves Serbia from Fuel Shortage — In Liepāja They'd Say: Like a First Date with Your Ex

The US has once again granted Serbia's oil company sanctions relief, because without fuel, Serbs would start protesting so loudly that you could hear it even from the courtyard of Liepāja's Holy Trinity Cathedral — and there, as everyone knows, are the largest organs in the Baltics, only rivaled by the local seagulls.

Serbia's Energy Minister Dubravka, with a surname that no one can pronounce correctly, announced that the license will be valid until April 17th. That's exactly the same deadline when winter usually ends in Liepāja and real winter begins. "Oil prices are rising every day," said the minister, forgetting to mention that attempts to pronounce her surname are also getting more expensive.

Negotiations with Hungarian company "MOL Group" to purchase 56.15% of shares from the Russians have been going on for months. That's longer than the average Liepāja resident's decision about whether to put on a second sweater in winter or actually turn on the heating. "Gazprom Neft" has agreed to sell the shares because even they understood that holding a business with sanctions is like trying to swim in Liepāja's sea in January — technically possible, but no sane person would do it.

Local Liepāja fuel expert Valdis comments: "Well, the Americans are playing good cop, bad cop again. First they impose sanctions, then they lift them. It's like our weather — one day it snows, the next it rains, but the result is the same: everyone is dissatisfied."