In my view, Russia is playing the deeper game of making sure the potentially affected populations in Europe come to or stay on their side. If they turn off the gas immediately, the media and politicians just scream, "Lousy Russkies!" and everyone believes them.

However, if they wait some period of time, enough for more people to get apprised of the situation and enough for the governments to have made other arrangements, and then the gas goes off, everyone knows to blame their own governments.

In the final analysis, any way you slice it, Russia holds about every card in the deck here and can afford to implement any strategy they choose.