Europe's Reduced Reliance on Russian Energy Imports

raquelgoulartra
1 day ago
2 min read

This article is published in collaboration with Statista

by Felix Richter

Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Europe has made a collective effort to reduce its dependence on Russian energy. Along with embargos on certain energy imports, the EU implemented wide-ranging initiatives like the REPowerEU plan, adopted in May 2022, to save energy, boost clean energy production and diversify energy supplies – all with the goal to reduce and ultimately eliminate the bloc’s reliance on Russian oil and gas.

To a large degree, it worked: Between Q1 2021 and Q2 2025, the EU-27 reduced Russian oil imports by more than 90 percent, cutting the share of Russian oil in total extra-EU imports from 29 percent to less than 2 percent. During the same period, Russia’s share of the EU’s natural gas imports dropped from 39 to 13 percent, driven mainly by a 52-percent reduction of natural gas imports in gaseous state. The value of liquefied natural gas imports from Russia actually almost tripled between Q1 2021 and Q2 2025 but still accounted for a smaller share of the EU’s total LNG imports in the most recent quarter. This is due to total LNG imports more than quadrupling during this period, as the EU replaced Russian pipeline gas with LNG from suppliers like the United States, Qatar and Norway.

However, Europe still faces challenges in reaching its goal of completely phasing out Russian energy imports by the end of 2027, as long-term contracts, uneven infrastructure among member states and the need to keep energy secure and affordable make it difficult to cut all remaining trade ties with Russia. And while U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Europe to “immediately stop” buying energy from Russia, some countries, like Hungary and Slovakia, the two largest remaining buyers of Russian crude oil in the EU, are reluctant to abandon Russia completely due to the costs that would be associated with switching to other suppliers.

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