Can we eliminate the risk of fire by setting the house on fire? Technically, yes. If there is a burn site on the house, there is no risk of another fire in that house. Yet in common parlance we do not call this risk elimination, but risk fulfilment.
It’s the same with addiction. If my life is addicted to a rope, I can get rid of that addiction by, for example, grabbing onto something else. If I don’t have any other security, I cut the rope and kill myself; in ordinary language it is not called getting rid of the addiction.
This brings us to how the Czech Republic is getting rid of its dependence on Russian gas. We are not getting rid of it by getting another source of energy with comparable stability at a comparable price. It is getting rid of it by shutting off the supply and collapsing the national economy. Every day the newspapers report more failed factories and mass redundancies. Like a climber cutting the rope he’s hanging on.
Logically, it’s a rather interesting figure. Propaganda takes a previously used term and fills it with entirely new content (in this case, even the opposite content). However, the term is associated in public space with those emotions that are related to the original content. Cutting the rope evokes a sense of security.
It will only work for a limited period of time until people get used to the new meaning of the word.