Russian gas flows to EU through Ukraine come to a stop; Brussels reassures: ‘We are well prepared’

Brussels – With the new year, Russian gas has stopped pumping into Europe through the Ukrainian route, as already announced and repeatedly confirmed in past months. As the contract in place with Brussels since 2019 expired, energy giant Gazprom closed the taps from the early hours of Wednesday, January 1. On the one hand, the move sparked the satisfaction of Volodymyr Zelensky, who defined the halt to Russian gas through Ukraine as “one of Moscow’s greatest defeats,” and on the other, the anger of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose country, along with Hungary, Austria, and indirectly Italy, used to be supplied with that very pipeline.

Compounded by lowering temperatures in much of Europe, the non-renewal of the contract with Moscow led to a spike in EU natural gas prices, which immediately touched 50 euros per megawatt hour, rising back to the worrying levels last reached during the October 2023 energy crisis. For now, Brussels flaunts confidence and calls for  calm: “The EU is well prepared to face the end of gas transit through Ukraine, thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Commission and the Member States,” the European Commission said, pointing to “four main diversification routes” to secure the necessary volumes of supply, through “LNG terminals in Germany, Greece, Italy, and Poland but perhaps also from Turkey.”

In a post on his social accounts, the Ukrainian president exulted: “When Putin took power in Russia more than 25 years ago, the annual pumping of gas through Ukraine to Europe was more than 130 billion cubic meters. Today, Russian gas transit is 0.” According to Kyiv, the damage to the Kremlin will range between $5 and $6.5 billion per year, while Ukraine gives up about $1 billion in excise taxes on transit to EU countries.

However, four European countries were still receiving gas from the Soviet-built pipeline connecting Sudzha, a town in Russia’s Kursk region that Ukraine forces currently control, to Uzhorod, on the Ukrainian-Slovak border​. In 2023, Bratislava received 6.5 billion cubic meters of Russian gas, Vienna 6 billion, and Budapest about one billion. To Italy, from the Tarvisio junction, 526 million cubic meters of gas arrived in December, according to Snam data. However, only a small part comes from Moscow, while the rest is from storage facilities in Austria and Germany.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and in line with the ‘REPowerEu‘ energy plan that set a political commitment to eliminate Russian fossil fuels by 2027 at the latest, the share of Russian gas in the European market has dropped from about 35 percent to about 8 percent. After the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline and the disruption of the Ukrainian route, the only energy artery still functioning between the EU and Russia is TurkStream — the Black Sea pipeline that sends gas to Hungary and Serbia.

While Brussels claims to have been “working for more than a year preparing for this scenario,” — Russian gas from Ukraine accounted for only about 5 percent of Europe’s gas needs –according to Slovak Prime Minister Fico, who recently flew to see Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, “the disruption of gas transit through Ukraine will have a drastic impact on all of us in the EU, but not on the Russian Federation.” For now, the most dramatic effect has occurred in the Moldovan separatist region of Transnistria, where heating and hot water have been cut off since Wednesday morning.

It is “essential that Moldova access alternative supplies to cover Transnistria’s gas demand,” Brussels admitted in its assessment of the transit stop from Ukraine. While most of Moldova’s 2.5 million inhabitants will be able to make up for the loss of Russian gas, drawing from their reserves and importing from Romania, the same is not true for the 450,000 residents of Transnistria.

When Putin was presented with the Russian presidency more than 25 years ago, the annual gas transit through Ukraine to Europe totaled more than 130 billion cubic meters. Today, it equals 0. This is one of Moscow’s biggest defeats.

As a result of Russia weaponizing energy and…

– Volodymyr Zelenskyy (@ZelenskyyUa) January 1, 2025